The Ins and Outs of Iranian Industrial Resilience under Sanctions

This paper draws on export data from four of Iran’s key trade partners—the European Union, China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey—to examine the robust and positive correlations between the export of parts and machinery to Iran and Iran’s industrial output, as measured by production index data published by the Central Bank of Iran for industrial enterprises with over 100 employees. The period of analysis is 2000 to 2017. It may seem intuitive that the output of Iranian manufacturers depends on the ability of companies to source intermediate goods such as parts and machinery. However, the imposition of sanctions on Iran is shown to have temporarily decoupled the relationship between European industrial exports to Iran and the Iranian industrial production index—the index remained stable even as European exports fell. An analysis of trade data for the other three trade partners included in this study quantitatively substantiates reports noting that in order to sustain the industrial production index, Iran engaged in processes that can be collectively described as “import reflection.” This entails substituting European intermediate inputs with Chinese inputs while also circumventing sanctions pressures on trade by sourcing European inputs via re‐export from the UAE and Turkey. These processes were fundamental to Iran’s economic resilience in the face of multilateral sanctions and have played a central role in Iran’s defense of its industrialized economy and particularly its non‐oil exports as the administration of US President Donald Trump pursues a new unilateral campaign of “maximum pressure” sanctions.     

Sanctions,Smuggling, and the Cigarette: The Granting of Iran OFAC Licenses to Big Tobacco

This paper seeks to understand the political economy implications of nicotine addiction in Iran, focusing on the US Office of Foreign Asset Control's granting of Iran operations licenses to American tobacco companies. Presuming that tobacco taxes, levied both as import duties and ad valorem, would financially benefit the Iranian government, the introduction of a highly desired US product to the market would be antithetical to the sanctions regime currently in place. By comparing Iran's tobacco industry, and the attendant public health crisis that has arisen from high rates of nicotine addiction, to conditions in Turkey, it can be demonstrated that Iran is uniquely unable to extract revenues from the sale of tobacco products. The primary point of comparison between Iran and Turkey is smoking-attributable annual productivity losses of each country, as estimated through the use of Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Morbidity and Economic Costs Software (SAMMEC) and the available related literature. According to the calculations derived from the SAMMEC model, Iran is burdened with an astonishing economic cost due to the high prevalence of smokers. It is concluded that an awareness of this condition enables OFAC to award licenses to Big Tobacco without fear of undermining current foreign policy initiatives.     

From Tobacco Revolt to Youth Rebellion: A Social History of the Cigarette in Iran

Focusing on the cultural influence of the cigarette, this paper synthesizes a wide range of evidence to argue that the cigarette was a fundamental primer for Iran's encounter with modernity, especially as understood in the context of western influence. Applying the dramaturgical theories of sociologist Erving Goffman, it is argued that the cigarette is an instantiation of the “sign-equipment” of modernization used to refashion the identity and subjectivity of Iranian men and women. This refashioning has occurred in three distinct periods. In the first period (1860–1930), cigarette smoking was a habit adopted by the Persian elite in an attempt to mediate the encounter with European colonial figures. In the second period (1930–70), cigarettes were leveraged by Iranians who wished to be seen as upwardly mobile. In the final and contemporary period (1970–present), cigarettes have become ubiquitous among the adult population, but smoking itself has become the act of youth rebellion as experimentation occurs at increasingly young ages.