Iran Auto
Building a Global Industry in an Islamic State

The book is about the rise of Iran Auto: one of the world's largest automobile industries that few people know anything about.

Darius Mehri (Author)

9781107171671, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 October 2017

194 pages, 19 b/w illus. 11 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

'Possibilities for industrialization in a globalized world and the range of economic options open to Islamic regimes must both be re-imagined as a result of this carefully researched, empirically grounded, analytically thoughtful book. Mehri explodes accepted stereotypes and reveals new possibilities for connection between nationalist economic regimes and transnational corporations. His analysis of the growth of Iran's auto industry should be required reading for anyone interested in twenty-first century economic development in the Global South.' Peter Evans, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley and Watson Institute for International Studies and Public Affairs, Brown University, Rhode Island

Since the revolution of 1979, scholars have portrayed the Islamic State's industrial development capacity in a negative light. Global isolation, incoherent economic planning, and predatory Islamic institutions are often cited as the reasons for lackluster development. In Iran Auto: Building a Global Industry in an Islamic State, Darius Mehri shows how this characterization is misguided. Today, Iran has one of the world's largest automobile industries with national technical capacity. Previous studies ignore the consequences of three decades of Iran's capacity for successful industrialization and changes in global technology transfer that allow countries, even ones isolated from formal global institutions, to build an automobile industry. Mehri shows how industrial nationalists in Iran constructed a network of politically effective relationships to open up space for successful local industrial development, and then tapped into a set of important global linkages to create an industry with high local manufacturing content. This book will open up a new line of inquiry into how countries in the global south can develop a successful national automobile industry without the need to conform to global economic institutions.

Introduction
1. Setting the stage: the pre-revolution rise and the post-revolution decline of the automobile industry
2. The rise of the industrial nationalists: postwar conflict, neoliberalism, and national industrial strategy
3. An era of coherence: state-led development and the deepening of automobile industry ties to society
4. Using global corporate networks as a path to national industrial development
5. From industrial protection to the rise of the stakeholder model of corporate ownership
6. Factors determining Iran Auto's survival: industry fragility, the quality issue, and the conflict over globalization
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Politics & government [JP], Social research & statistics [JHBC], Sociology [JHB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Society & social sciences [J], Research methods: general [GPS]