Sanctions and the Socio-Economic Roots of Iran's Domestic Instability (2010-2020)

Abstract

Since 2006 (if not before), sanctions imposed by the US and some other countries on Iran were aimed at depriving Tehran of financial sources allowing the country's leadership to buy the loyalty of its population. And, at the first approach, this policy seemed to bring expected results: the popular unrest of 2009, 2012, 2018, 2019 as well as occasional minor protests in between became a serious stress-test for the regime. Yet, the Iranian political system managed to leave through it. Kozhanov looks into the socio-economic routes of the Iranian protest trying to explain the reasons for the durability of Iran's political system even in the conditions of the economic crisis caused by the sanctions.