[Mitai-announce] MIT Lecture "Iran at the Grassroots: The Fate of Local Democracy in the Islamic Republic.." THIS SUNDAY

[Ali Mostashari]

Iranian Studies Group (ISG) at MIT  Lecture Series

TITLE: Iran at the Grassroots: The Fate of Local Democracy under the 
Islamic Republic
SPEAKER: Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh

DATE:  Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003
TIME:   4:00 p.m.- 5:30 p.m. (Lecture and Q&A sessions)
Location: MIT, Room 4-270
MAP: http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=4&Buildings=go
In English. Free and Open to the Public.

Please feel free to forward to anyone you feel may be interested.

Abstract:

After the Islamic Revolution of 1979 three factors led the country towards
greater centralization. First, the disruption to the economy and the
flight of key investors and personnel led the new government to
nationalize many industries and sectors of the economy. Second, the
eight-year long war with Iraq and concerns about the possibility of
regional separatism in ethnic minority regions forced the government to
centralize military and administrative functions to safeguard the new
state. Third, the desire to create a new state system along novel
ideological lines accentuated the need for greater centralized authority
in all spheres of society.

         However, the end of the war with Iraq in 1988, the need for
reconstruction and renewed economic growth to meet the needs of rapidly
growing population, brought to the fore several proposals for
decentralization of economic, fiscal, administrative and political
functions. The decade of the 1990s saw the beginnings of proposals for
privatizing economic sectors; the Third National Development Plan
(2000-2004) calls for the administrative decentralization of the central
government's ministries and service delivery functions to provincial and
urban and rural levels; and in 1999, the country established an extensive
new system of elected local councils at the urban and village levels
(about 8,000 councilors in 900 cities and about 107,000 councilors in
about 33,000 villages).

In addition as part of urban fiscal decentralization reform, in 1984 the
government passed the "Municipal Fiscal Self-Sufficiency Act" which aimed
to phase out all central government assistance to urban municipalities
(shahrdarihah) within three years. (The reasons for this rather draconian
measure can be interpreted either cynically as the desire of the central
state to unburden itself at a time of high military expense or ideally, as
a way to encourage cities to pursue local economic development
themselves.) However this program has had mixed results, leaving many
smaller urban areas struggling to make ends meet and leaving the central
government no choice but to maintain a high level of transfers to the
majority of municipalities. This is exacerbated by the rapid growth in the
number of newly established urban centers which are in practice large
villages rather than cities.

However, in January 2003, The Tax Amalgamation Law -- one of the most
significant fiscal reforms of the last several decades -- was signed into
law by the reformist dominated Majlis and supercedes all previous laws and
Executive Decrees. The goal of this law is to streamline of the hundreds
of taxes through centralizing and concentrating tax collection
responsibilities in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. Part of
this new tax system affects LGs. While promising to increase the volume of
municipal revenues, it has two negative features.  First, it still leaves
important aspects of the relationship between definitions of national and
local taxes ambiguous. Second, it removes practically all authority of LGs
to determine and raise taxes, and restricts whatever authority it they do
have. In practice, it significantly reverses the move toward
decentralization represented by the 1996 Councils Law which established
elected local councils. The concrete impacts of this major change in the
financial system will only become more apparent in the coming years. In
general however, it shifts the balance of power away from even the limited
autonomy gained by the localities, back towards the center.

This lack of serious commitment in deepening the local democratic reforms
by even the reformist dominated Majlis was reflected in the less than
enthusiastic popular participation in the second round of local elections
in 2003. Especially in the large cities the very poor turnout signaled the
possibility of yet another missed opportunity by the current reformist
program in Iran. This presentation discusses the lessons of this
experience, and will offer a look at the two future elections next year
for parliament (Majlis) and Presidency.

About the Speaker:

Kian Tajbakhsh (Ph.D. 1993, Columbia University) is based in Tehran, Iran
where he is a Research Fellow, Cultural Research Bureau. He teaches as a
visiting Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Tehran University. He
is a member of a network of researchers and practitioners on development
for the Middle East Region based in Beirut, Lebanon.  He is also Senior
Research Fellow at the Milano Graduate School, New School University, New
York City, where from 1994 until 2001, he was Assistant Professor of Urban
Policy and Politics.

For more information on the Iranian Studies Group at MIT refer to our website:
http://web.mit.edu/isg

For more information contact:

Ali Mostashari
Iranian Studies Group at MIT
http://web.mit.edu/isg
amostash at mit.edu














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