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All tagged corruption
The appointment of Ali Salehabadi as Iran’s new central bank governor reflects the generational shift underway in Iranian policymaking—he was born just one year before the revolution that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
A public opinion survey conducted in October by researchers at the University of Maryland provides insights into how the Iranian public is reacting to an economy battered by U.S. sanctions and ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic
The Rouhani administration has lofty goals to grow Iran-Iraq trade as Iran seeks to expand its non-oil exports. But dysfunction at the border and a lack of government support have frustrated many Iranian exporters.
◢ Despite mounting evidence that the Iranian government’s policy of allocating subsidized foreign currency for the importation of essential goods has failed, the Rouhani administration has signaled that it plans to maintain the policy for at least another year. But lawmakers and Rouhani’s own cabinet ministers may force the administration to change course.
◢ Iran is battling a paper crisis. Gradual price hikes have been increasing pressure on book and newspaper publishers over the last year, but the scale of the crisis became clear when Culture Minister Abbas Salehi announced on August 4 that the country has just enough newsprint paper in storage to meet two months worth of demand. The government has rolled out a support package that includes importing paper as an essential good. But the move defers real reform that is needed to address a decades-long problem of corruption and inefficiency.
◢ The bazaar of today is not the bazaar of forty years ago, and no longer plays the same role as a key actor in Iran’s popular political mobilizations. The recent bazaar closures reflect primarily the economic self-interest of bazaar elite, who sense an opportunity to put the brakes on reforms that threaten their unique capacities for lucrative arbitrage. Protests are being co-opted as a political tool at the expense of genuine civil society mobilization.
