UCLA

This dissertation advances the literature on corporatism through a detailed case study of Iran. The dissertation’s main argument is that international conflict can provide opportunities for authoritarian state-building and state-labor integration. Combining process tracing methods with unique archival, interview, and quantitative analysis, I present a historical sociology of the development of labor market institutions in modern Iran, with a special focus on the 1940s-2010s period. I describe three waves of institution-building in the wake of international conflict and warfare, including the more recent period of severe economic sanctions. For each period, the dissertation pays close attention to causal sequences, showing how authoritarian politics and workers’ movements interacted to create institutions that shaped subsequent historical trajectories. The dissertation makes three main contributions. First, I find that international conflict can present non-zero-sum opportunities to both labor movements and autocratic leaders. This finding is especially relevant given intensifying interstate rivalries and the rise of economic sanctions in the 21st century. Second, I contribute to theories of corporatism by highlighting how oil rents can support labor organizing. Third, I show how labor politics in Iran has not just been shaped by control, neoliberalism, or resource abundance, but also by powerful bargaining institutions forged out of waves of war- and state-making.