Analyzing the Economic Development Policy of the Rentier State in the Province of Khuzestan: Case Study of the Ninth and Tenth States

The geo-economic conditions and abundant oil and gas resources and many relative actual and potential advantages of Khuzestan province require this province to become one of the most developed regions of the country, but this has not been achieved so far. The present study aimed to find the roots of this problem. Though various components and factors can affect the underdevelopment of this region, this study hypothesizes that the continuation of forming a rentier state and incorrect policies made by the elites are among the important causes of underdevelopment in the province of Khuzestan. The rentier state is basically in-capable of advancing the development goals, due to adopting an egalitarian approach, pur-suing ambitious goals, implementing populist-type distribution policies, the discrepancy between goals and methods, and the inability to extract resources from the society and redi-stribute them. The present study aimed to analyze the outcomes of the economic develop-ment policy of the ninth and tenth rentier states in the province of Khuzestan. The results showed that, due to the policies of these states, more than fifty percent of the important industri-al and production centers in Khuzestan province faced serious and fundamental challenges such as stagnation, closure, or forced cessation of production, leading to the decline of development indicators and, consequently, increased unemployment, poverty, deprivation, and social anoma-lies, as well as the loss of intergenerational capitals. The methodology used in this study was field study using bibliographical studies and descriptive-analytical method.