Abstract:
Relations between the Iranian government and oil companies were within the framework of the concession paradigm for eighty years. During these years, the Iranian government sought to attract foreign capital, increase income, and improve concession conditions, while oil companies aimed to increase their profits and the legal validity of the concessions. The effort to maximize interests on both sides of this relationship created continuous and numerous challenges in their relations. The Iranian government demanded improvement in concession conditions, including increasing royalties, awareness of company operations and performance, and upgrading its position; in contrast, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company sought to consolidate the legal foundations of the concession and extend it. While the efforts of the oil company were successful, the efforts of the Iranian government were not met with satisfaction. Dissatisfaction with the implemented reforms and accumulated discontent resulting from concession contracts faced serious doubts regarding the adequacy of the concession paradigm. * This article is derived from the author's research project titled 'Relations between Government and Oil in Iran 1240-1320', which was approved and conducted at the Faculty of Administrative and Economic Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, under number 13/2049, dated 1388/2/28. ** Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (sinaee@um.ac.ir). The continuation of this paradigm became impossible from the late 1320s (1940), and finally, the nationalism paradigm replaced it.
Machine summary:
During these years, the Iranian government sought to attract foreign investment, increase revenue, and improve concession terms, while oil companies aimed to increase profits and the legal validity of concessions.
Thus, the existence of a legal regime of concessions and the granting of concessions for natural and mineral resources by the state on one hand, and the practice of granting concessions for mineral resources, including oil, by the Iranian government on the other, provided the legal grounds for granting oil concessions to European applicants and international companies from the mid-19th century AD in Iran; although the nature and economic and political consequences of the new concessions were fundamentally different from the concessions that were granted in the past.
Furthermore, this possibility sometimes fell solely into the hands of a single individual or a single company; just as the D'Arcy Concession encompassed the comprehensiveness and scope of all economic sectors of the country, and in the D'Arcy contract, the granting of oil provided the possibility of negating the economic independence and limiting the political sovereignty of the Iranian government.
The explanations provided by Mohammad Saed, the Prime Minister, in the nineteenth session of the National Consultative Assembly on August 10, 1944 (19 Mordad 1323), and the commencement of the work of the "Proposal Review Commission," indicated the government's principled agreement with granting a concession to one of the negotiating oil companies, although under different terms than the D'Arcy contract.
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