“منظور از عشق یعنی دوست داشتن و احترام گذاشتن برای همیشه”

“The meaning of love is to love and respect forever.”
Ali Asghar Ramazanpour

What is referred to as administrative corruption in Iran is actually political corruption; however, due to censorship, the term political corruption is avoided.

In the global definition, any use of power resulting from public authority, which is given to government agents for personal gain, is considered political corruption. Bribery, party games, disregard for the law, and lack of transparency and providing false information about programs and actions are all forms of improper use of power given by the government to a position holder.

Studies on political corruption usually emphasize four points: 1) Political or administrative corruption has a social and historical background that reproduces a type of disregard for the law at an individual and societal level. 2) The lack of oversight over the behavior of the administrative and political system, both internally and externally, increases the dimensions of misconduct and law violation. 3) In systems where political corruption is widespread, there is no credible and independent judicial system, and corruption in the judicial system is part of political corruption. 4) The historical continuity of political corruption leads to the formation of behaviors and relationships that institutionalize corruption. Institutionalization of corruption means that the functioning of the political system without structural corruption is not possible. There is no empirical or theoretical evidence that political corruption necessarily speeds up the collapse of the political system.

Regarding Iran, there is a lot of evidence for the existence of these four fundamental assumptions for political corruption. In all three political systems in contemporary Iranian history, all of these evidence can be seen; however, these historical evidence show that this corruption has decreased at certain times. The first decade of Reza Shah’s rule was accompanied by a relative decrease in corruption. The collapse of the government system in Iran during the occupation of Iran by the Allies during World War II increased political corruption in Iran. After the coup of August 28, the consolidation of government power once again led to increased surveillance and relative decrease in corruption. The sudden increase in oil revenues and expensive government projects in the 1950s led to the prevalence of corruption among powerful elites. In the years after the 1957 revolution, a new form of corruption returned to the political system, which was in the form of looting the properties and facilities of others through their political destruction. The milder form of this type of corruption (

This brief review of history shows that corruption in Iran has continued both during difficult economic conditions and during relative improvement and increase in income. As a result, political corruption has acted as a drain on national income for over a century.

During President Hassan Rouhani’s term, we have not witnessed any structural changes in the prevalent political corruption in Iran. The ruling political faction has changed in some areas, even at a high level, but the influential elite in politics are still the same social groups as before. The decrease in government revenue as a result of the gradual impact of sanctions and the decrease in oil prices has somewhat reduced the amount of money in circulation, which has also somewhat reduced the absolute volume of corruption. However, none of these changes can be considered as fundamental changes in the structures that lead to political corruption in Iran. Therefore, it can be said that there have been no fundamental changes in the foundations of political and administrative corruption in the two terms. The only difference is that the intensification of internal factional conflicts has led to cases such as the high-profile embezzlement case within the top layers of the administrative system being brought to the media and making the public more sensitive to this issue.

Political corruption and the issue of development.

From a theoretical and historical perspective, reducing political corruption has been one of the goals of building a modern government around the world. In Iran, this goal has been raised since the beginning of administrative reforms during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah. This demand became one of the main slogans of the constitutionalists during the constitutional period. During the Pahlavi government, combating corruption was one of the main slogans of the government. This rule has continued until today. However, two key elements have been absent in the fight against corruption throughout this period: one is free media and independent journalism, and the other is a judiciary that is independent from the executive branch and trusted by the people. Therefore, there is no possibility of monitoring the political system and its agents in Iran.

The intensification of religious, ethnic, and regional discrimination has also led to an increase in corruption in Iran. This phenomenon is itself the result of dividing citizens into first and second class citizens and the lack of fundamental freedoms.

Based on this, it can be said that the lack of fundamental freedoms for citizens and media, and the lack of oversight over the judiciary, have been the main factors in the continued political and administrative corruption in Iran. Although political developments have always changed the composition of rent-seeking groups in the government.

Governments in Iran have used relying on rent-seekers as a means to strengthen their social power. In other words, giving out rent is considered a guarantee for political stability. From this perspective, governments in Iran have needed a certain level of political corruption in order to bribe their supporters and replace traditional alliances in a democratic system.

This means that in the governments of Iran, there is no structural will to fight corruption. What has been proposed so far as actions and programs to combat corruption is mostly part of the internal struggle between influential factions in the power structure. Without addressing fundamental freedoms, equal rights for all citizens, and repairing the relationship between the people and the government, there is no way to end structural corruption.