Aiming to survey how the increase in oil revenue influenced on the collapse of the second Pahlavi regime, the present article is formed based on the theory of “rentier state”. In this regard, the paper maintains that considering Mohammad-Reza`s government as a rentier s
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Aiming to survey how the increase in oil revenue influenced on the collapse of the second Pahlavi regime, the present article is formed based on the theory of “rentier state”. In this regard, the paper maintains that considering Mohammad-Reza`s government as a rentier state would allow to conceive its structure and the ultimate decay. According to the theory, such description might be applicable to those states which a large majority of their overall revenue comes from regular foreign revenue rather than national production cycle. Such performance, negatively affecting the economic, social and political realm of the society, is much likely to end up in the legitimacy crisis and the collapse of the state itself. Accordingly, having become a rentier state from late1950s on, due to the rise in oil revenue, the second Pahlavi reign encountered some negative impact of such situation on its economy, politics, and society, which, all in all, had de-stabilizing effects on regime. Ever-increasing governmental domination over the economy, rise in the proportion of oil-driven revenues in governmental budget and development policies, a more autocrat king, extension of security/ intelligence services and, consequently, a more political oppression, taking control the society by bureaucracy, prevalence of financial corruption and promotion of rent-seeking ethos, and propagating the formal/ government-run culture by the regime are some of the most significant such effects. Hence, this situation caused to a gap between government and the people, their distrust in regime as an illegitimate one, and, consequently, contributed to its collapse in 1979. To explain the data, the present paper takes advantage of a descriptive-analytic method
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