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REVISTA IEEE 11

262 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 11 / 2018 unexploited abundant natural resources, the invention of new instruments of warfare and the emergence of outer shocks53, among others. AN INSIGHT INTO THE CURRENT SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTEXT The Iranian regime continues to be one of the most conservative and enigmatic political systems in the world, whose analysis is often impaired by the political ethnocentrism of the Western media. The preponderance of religion in every moral sphere is supported by a military and propagandistic apparatus that manages to keep the great majority of the people on the fringes of politics. Figure 5: oil fields in the coastal city of Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni, in the Persian Gulf This structure prevails thanks to the economic income generated by oil and gas extraction, in what some analysts call the «resource curse», since its existence leads to the utilitarian aspect of the administration and a quasi-total external dependency. Indeed, abundance in times of high market prices instigates the enrichment of the installed elite, which provokes the protests of the population and their subsequent neutralization by repressive means. This was the case in the years following the revolution54, during which the new authorities adopted the «aristocratic manners» of their predecessors impeding any new 53 Concerning the former mandate of Mahmoud Ahmadineyad, it is difficult to say whether it was the US-motivated international isolation of the country or the progress made in nuclear energy which served to empower a populist administration of the state. 54 Following the Iranian shortage on oil production in 1978 (from 6 to 1.5 million barrels/day), the new Islamic authorities were able to dominate the market prices at their discretion, with prices http://revista.ieee.es

REVISTA IEEE 11
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