Why do long-term sanctions so often seem to hit ordinary people harder than the governments they target? This question lies at the heart of the doctoral research of Farhad Feizi, a double-degree doctoral candidate in political economy at Justus Liebig University Giessen and the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. His book Entrepreneurialism in Iran: A Neocolonial Failure will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2027. During a three-month research stay at the University of Sarajevo through a EUPeace Doctoral Mobility Grant, he presented the complete argument of his dissertation publicly for the first time, at the 5th International Social Sciences Week of the Faculty of Political Sciences.
Isolated from outside, liberalised from inside
Since 2010, Iran has faced one of the most comprehensive sanctions regimes in the world. At the same time, the Iranian state has adopted economic reforms usually recommended for countries that are integrated into global markets, such as privatisation and the removal of subsidies. Feizi describes the result with a new concept: “neoliberal autarky”. By this he means a political and economic system that is cut off from the outside world while being reorganised along market lines from within.
According to Feizi, it is this combination that makes the situation so damaging. Reforms of this kind are designed for economies that take part in international trade and global supply chains. “Absorbing them while the country is systematically excluded from the global economy was a detrimental mistake,” he says. Instead of strengthening the economy, the reforms shifted the burden of sanctions from the state to society, while benefiting a small group that had profited from the sanctions in the first place. For large parts of the population, Feizi argues, the consequence has been growing poverty. For a state that emerged from a popular revolution, it has also meant steadily losing support among the people it once relied on.
The Scissors Model
Feizi brings his findings together in what he calls the “Scissors Model of Development”. On one side is lasting external pressure. On the other are domestic reforms introduced without the institutions and conditions they need to work. Society is caught between the two, like paper between two blades.
The model builds on theories of hegemony from international relations, which ask how powerful states secure their position, through consent or through pressure. Feizi argues that towards countries such as Iran, pressure has consistently outweighed consent, and that domestic policy has amplified rather than cushioned its effects.
A pattern two centuries in the making
Feizi’s analysis spans the period from the mid-19th century to the present. Before foreign powers became closely involved in the country, he argues, Iran was developing slowly on its own terms, from an agricultural economy towards industry. From then on, outside forces repeatedly shaped its path. Under the Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), foreign loans came with conditions to reform state finances. Under the Pahlavis (1925–1979), financial and political support from abroad encouraged rapid industrialisation. Since 1979, wars and sanctions have taken over, yet paradoxically they too pushed the state towards top-down reforms. In Feizi’s view, the result has been “pseudo-development” rather than genuine development: economic change that does not translate into better living conditions for society.
Other heavily sanctioned countries, such as Cuba or Syria, have not adopted market reforms on a comparable scale, which makes Iran a particularly revealing case.
Why context matters
His aim, Feizi stresses, is not to argue for or against a particular economic doctrine. “My research does not side with or against neoliberalism, or any other ‘ism’. It illustrates the importance of functions,” he explains. Economists call this path dependency: the same policy can work in one setting and fail in another, depending on a country’s history, its institutions and its place in the world economy.
What it means beyond Iran
Sanctions have become an increasingly common instrument of international politics. Supporters see them as a non-military way of putting pressure on governments, while critics ask who ultimately bears their cost. Feizi’s work adds a warning to this debate: applied too broadly and for too long, sanctions may encourage the very isolation and nationalist responses they are meant to counter, and make dialogue harder rather than easier.
Testing the argument in the classroom
In Sarajevo, Feizi presented his findings to students of International Political Economy. He deliberately began with examples from Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that students could connect abstract theories to their own context before turning to Iran. Their questions showed how directly the topic spoke to them, among them: “What are the alternative solutions for a country facing such lasting sanctions?” As he prepares to defend his thesis, Feizi describes the session as “almost a pre-defence”.
For Feizi, this kind of conversation should reach beyond academia, because citizens help shape how their governments act. His advice to a wider audience is simple: “Do not judge, but observe.”
