Iran Auto

'Iran is among the world's top fifteen auto producers. Who knew!?! More than that, unlike most countries outside of the Triad, Iran has its own set of companies with capabilities to design both cars and drive trains. In this book, Mehri tells the fascinating story of how Iran's auto industry, under a sanctions regime that effectively prohibited the foreign investment that provides the foundation for most developing countries' auto industries, systematically gained industrial capabilities by tapping the services of global automotive engineering consultancies and Tier 1 suppliers through programs explicitly designed to transfer knowledge to Iranian firms. It's an extreme case that provides rich lessons for how global industries work today, and how creative government policies can leverage the openness of Global Value Chains to foster upgrading in their domestic industries.' Timothy J. Sturgeon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Industrial Performance Center 'The automobile industry in Iran employs an estimated one million employees. However, until Mehri's compelling contribution, we had no academic study of Iran's largest source of employment. Not only does he mobilize original data based on diverse primary sources, but Mehri deftly employs theories from economic sociology to uncover a 'mini-developmental state' that, while fragile and resting on a political coalition, has generated economic efficiency and technical innovation. This book enriches our understanding of post-revolutionary Iran, as well as industrial development, by unearthing the role played by transnational technological networks and the fashioning of embedded autonomy.' Arang Keshavarzian, New York University and author of Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace 'Many westerners think of Iran as a backward-looking autocracy, whose rulers are neither willing nor able to modernize their country. They would be surprised to learn that the Islamic Republic plays host to one of the developing world's largest and most domesticated auto industries - producing more than one million vehicles per year with approximately sixty percent local content. In this fascinating monograph, Darius Mehri explains the 'rise of Iran auto', paying particularly careful attention to the role of engineering consultancies in the process, and in so doing forces us to rethink not only our portrait of the Islamic Republic but the prospects for industrialization in the Global South more generally.' Andrew Schrank, Olive Watson Professor of Sociology and International Studies, Brown University, Rhode Island 'Possibilities for industrialization in a globalized world and the range of economic options open to Islamic regimes must both be re-imagined as a result of this carefully researched, empirically grounded, analytically thoughtful book. Mehri explodes accepted stereotypes and reveals new possibilities for connection between nationalist economic regimes and transnational corporations. His analysis of the growth of Iran's auto industry should be required reading for anyone interested in twenty-first century economic development in the Global South.' Peter Evans, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley and Watson Institute for International Studies and Public Affairs, Brown University, Rhode Island