Industrializing an Oil-Based Economy: Evidence from Iran’s Auto Industry ,Journal of International Development, June 2020,
Two theoretical paradigms namely, the ‘resource curse’ and ‘developmental state’ would predict that industrial development in countries with abundance of capital-intensive natural resources and in states with patrimonial tendencies is doomed to failure. Iran’s success in developing a dynamic auto industry, which in 2011 became the world’s 12th largest automobile manufacturer with 1.6 million vehicles produced per year seems to contradict these perspectives. How was this technical capacity created in an oil-based economy—which provides little […]
”Erik Olin Wright (1947-2019),”
Erik Olin Wright was a distinguished sociologist and, from 2011 to 2012, president of the American Sociological Association. He died on January 23, 2019, leaving behind an inspiring moral and intellectual legacy and a tremendous oeuvre spanning more than 40 years. He generated a vast panoply of innovative research across an exceptionally wide array of subfields including social stratification, ethnography, political sociology, economic sociology, and sociology of gender. He will be remembered as the most […]
”The Optimism of the Intellect: Erik Olin Wright’s Real Utopias Project” Palgrave Encyclopaedia of the Possible
When radical critics of capitalism become desperate for empirical models that embody their aspirations, wishful thinking can triumph over sober assessments. The complementary danger is cynicism; there is great cachet among intellectuals in debunking naïve enthusiasm. What is needed, then, are accounts of empirical cases that are neither gullible nor cynical, but try to fully recognize the complexity and dilemmas as well as the real potentials of practical efforts at social empowerment. – Erik Olin […]