From economic coalition to political ramifications: an analysis of the relationship between politics and economics in the second decade of Islamic Revolution

By the late 1970s the association between politics and economics had been discussed by some structural Marxist thinkers in an abstract and subjective form. However, since the 1980s onwards, with the formation of interdisciplinary studies, the relationship between politics and economy was not either in an abstract form, and analyzed in an objective and practical manner. One of the major arguments in this area is the impact of economic factors on political relations. Inspired by such literature, the current article seeks to analyze the effectiveness of economic disputes on political relations, i.e. the impact of economy on politics at the second decade of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Secondly, the article specifies that tools and mechanisms underlying such influence include government’s economic policies, and in particular, the first and second 5-year development plan and budget bills. Thirdly, the article shows that the influence of these economic factors on political relations is specified in two forms including traditional right inter-factional division and the coalition between modern right and modern left. The investigations indicate that how much politics in the second decade of the Islamic Revolution has been influenced by economy, thus political relations to what extent have been influenced by economic relations rather than being purely political in nature.