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Barnâmeh rizi-ye umrâni va tasmim giri-ye siyâsi (Ideology, Process and Politics in Iran’s Development Planning

EBOOK

Barnâmeh rizi-ye umrâni va tasmim giri-ye siyâsi (Ideology, Process and Politics in Iran’s Development Planning

Interviews with Manuchehr Gudarzi, Khodadad Farmanfarmaian, and Abdol-Majid Majidi. 1999.

The 4th volume in the series focuses on the evolution of Iran's development planning from the Middle of the 2nd Plan, when Abol-Hassan Ebtehaj returned to Iran after the fall of Mossadiq in 1953 to become director of the Plan Organization, to the end of the 5th plan just before the Islamic Revolution of 1978/79. As other books in this series, this is concerned more with the issue at hand rather than the narrators' personal histories. Nevertheless, cross-recollections of actual interactions by different personalities dealing with the same problem within a shared political context, as is the case in this volume, imbue the subject with a dynamic quality that transcends the reality imparted in any individual narrative. It is therefore important to read each interview in relation to the others. This volume was produced in cooperation with three members of Iran's pre- Islamic Revolution planning elite: Manuchehr Gudarzi, Khodadad Farmanfarmaian, and Abdol-Majid Majidi. The participants began their work in the then Plan Organization (later Plan and Budget Organization) in the mid-1950s after Abol-Hassan Ebtehaj was appointed director. Gudarzi's field of specialization is management, Farmanfarmaian's economics, and Majidi's law and economics. Farmanfarmaian and Majidi were later appointed directors and served during the 4th and 5th plans respectively. Gudarzi was instrumental early in the development of the organization and method under Ebtehaj. Later, he was put in charge of urban development and social affairs, an important executive function of the Plan Organization at the time, before becoming deputy director of the Plan Organization and later secretary general of the State Organization for Administration and Employment.