| Summary/Abstract |
This article will discuss the partnership of Abdolhossein Nikpour and the Chambers of Commerce with the Iranian government in managing the national economy from the 1920s until the 1950s. In particular, it challenges the state-society paradigm, where it shows that Nikpour, as well as other merchants and entrepreneurs of the Chambers nationwide, worked with the Iranian government while striving to maintain their economic and political autonomy. Conversely, the Iranian government depended on the expertise of these economic actors. Hence, this article will offer new perspectives on Iran’s twentieth-century political economy. Based on their collaborative research, including Iranian, Soviet, and British primary sources, the authors conclude that Nikpour was a driving force of both the Chambers and Iran’s modern economy for most of his lifetime, encompassing the interwar, wartime, and early postwar periods. Ultimately, however, Nikpour and the Chambers’ power was curtailed by Mohammad Reza Shah in the late 1950s.
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