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Russia and Iran Ksenia Kirkham
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The Political Economy
of Sanctions: Resilience
and Transformation in
Russia and Iran
Ksenia Kirkham
International Political Economy Series
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Ksenia Kirkham
The Political
Economy
of Sanctions:
Resilience
and Transformation
in Russia and Iran
Ksenia Kirkham
Department of War Studies
King’s College London
London, UK
ISSN 2662-2483 ISSN 2662-2491 (electronic)

International Political Economy Series
ISBN 978-3-031-04054-2 ISBN 978-3-031-04055-9 (eBook)
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Welfare State Theories and IPE 5
1.2 The Political Economy of Sanctions 7
1.3 The Political Economy of Russia and Iran 10
1.4 Book Outline 13
References 17
Part I Theoretical Identification of the Mechanisms of

Sanctions
2 The Welfare State Regime as a Theoretical Account:
From Welfare State to Gramsci 33
2.1 First Theoretical Adaptation: From Functional
Representation of the Welfare State to ‘Regime’
Approach 33
2.2 Second and Third Theoretical Adaptations: Global
Dimension and Structural Power Relations 37
References 46
3 The Welfare State Regime as an Analytical Tool: From
Gramsci to Welfare 49
3.1 Contextual Settings: Capitalism and ‘Integral’ State 49
3.2 Hegemonic Rivalry and Counter-Hegemonic
Mechanisms 61
v
vi CONTENTS
3.3 Conclusion to Part I: Completing Theoretical Merger 67

References 70
Part II Institutional Design

4 Russia: Institutional Design 89
4.1 De-commodifying WSR Function 89
4.2 Redistributive WSR Function 98
4.3 Connecting WSR Function 110
References 120
5 Iran (Institutional Design) 127
5.4 Summing Up… 153
References 159
Part III Material Capabilities

6 Russia (Material Capabilities) 177
References 212
7 Iran (Material Capabilities) 217
References 248
Part IV Cultural Leadership

8 Russia (Cultural Leadership) 271
References 302
CONTENTS vii
9 Iran (Cultural Leadership) 309

References 338
Part V Welfare State Regime Reproduction

10 WSR Reproduction 345
10.1 Introduction 345
10.2 Counter-Hegemonic Trends 354
References 382
11 Concluding Remarks 387
11.1 Hobbesian Contender States? 387
11.2 Lockean ‘Heartland’? 391
11.3 Some Thoughts for Future Research 394
References 398
Appendices 401
Bibliography 419
Index 455
List of Figures
Fig. 3.1 Self-protection of society (Source Author’s diagram) 67

Fig. 3.2 Matrix of regime reproduction (Source Author’s diagram) 69
Fig. 4.1 Federal Budget Tax Structure, 2020, % of total =P 21
trillion ($274 billion) (Sources Ministry of Finance, 2021) 104
Fig. 4.2 Federal budget Expenditures, % of total: =P 13,343 bn.
in 2013, =P 16,709 bn. in 2018, =P 22,822 in 2020 (Source
Ministry of Finance 2021, https://minfin.gov.ru/ru/sta
tistics/fedbud/execute/) 107
Fig. 4.3 National Projects financing in 2020 (% of total) (Source
Ministry of Finance 2021) 109
Fig. 4.4 Foreign currencies and gold of the CBR (% of market
value) (Source Authors calculations, the Bank of Russia,
2015, 2019) 109
Fig. 5.1 The share of taxes and oil revenues in general budget
revenues, % (Source Statistical Centre of Iran, 2019) 142
Fig. 5.2 Tax structure, % (Source Statistical Centre of Iran, 2019) 143
Fig. 5.3 The share of social welfare in total budget expenditure, %
(Source Statistical Centre of Iran, 2019) 146
Fig. III.1 Top 100 TNCs by countries, $ of total profit (Source
Author’s Calculations, Data from Forbes) 166
Fig. III.2 Percentage of world millionaire by country, % (Source
Credit Swiss 2018) 169
Fig. 6.1 Most common breaches of open-ended contracts, %
of respondents (Source Author’s Interview with a HR
manager, 2017) 179
ix
x LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 6.2 The structure of a household income (Sources GKS

2018, 2021) 183
Fig. 6.3 GDP structure in 2020, % (Source GKS, 2021) 191
Fig. 6.4 FDI flows into Russia and out of Russia: 1997–2019, US
$million (Source CBR [2022]) 206
Fig. 6.5 The average wages in science and education in Russia
and the United States, in US$ (Sources The US Bureau
of Labour Statistics, Ria Rating, GKS) 207
Fig. 6.6 Migration to Russia from selected states, number
of people (Source GKS 2021 https://rosstat.gov.ru/sto
rage/mediabank/dem21.pdf) 211
Fig. 7.1 GDP by sectors, % (Source Statistical Centre of Iran) 229
Fig. 7.2 The structure of household expenditures. Urban vs
Rural, % (Source Statistical Centre of Iran) 234
Fig. 7.3 FDI flows into Iran and out of Iran, selected years, US$
million (Source UNCTAD [2020]) 236
Fig. 7.4 Major trade partners with Iran, 2018–2019 (Source
UNCTAD [2020]) 241
Fig. 10.1 Power centralisation (Source Author’s diagram) 355
Fig. 10.2 Modernisation and optimisation (Source Author’s
diagram) 361
Fig. 10.3 Strategic partnership and diversification (Source Author’s
diagram) 367
Fig. 10.4 Para-constitutional reform (Source Author’s diagram) 372
Fig. 10.5 Cadre formation (Source Author’s diagram) 377
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Welfare state regime—theoretical development 44

Table 4.1 Taxes 104
Table 6.1 Dynamics of income, wages and pension in 2013–2020, % 182
Table 6.2 Sample household budgets for a pensioner, single parents
and families with 3 + children in Moscow, Tambov
and Omsk, 2017–2018 186
Table 6.3 Income disparities across regions 193
Table 6.4 IS in selected industries, the share of import in total
consumption, % 195
Table 9.1 Political factions in Iran 317
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Sanctions in IPE
The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long,

and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.
—Thomas Hobbes
The use of sanctions in international political economy has increased

Please confirm the section headings are correctly identified throughout
the chapters dramatically in recent years. Sanctions are now arguably the
most important instruments of US foreign policy towards ‘contender’
states such as Russia, Iran, China, Venezuela, and Cuba, to name a few.
Indeed, more sanctions were enacted during the first three years of the
Trump administration than under all previous ones. The Biden adminis-
tration does not seem to be willing to reverse this course of action any
time soon. Tightening, not easing, of sanctions policies is a more likely
scenario. This is especially true in the case of sanctions against Russia and
Iran. IN September 2021, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office
of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the US Department of State in
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
K. Kirkham, The Political Economy of Sanctions: Resilience
and Transformation in Russia and Iran, International Political
Economy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04055-9_1
2 K. KIRKHAM
cooperation with the UK Government announced a new round of sanc-

tions against Russia in response to the poisoning and then imprisonment
of opposition leader Alexei Navalny by Russian security services. In the
case of Iran, according to the Treasury Department, the recent de-listing
of Iranian entities (Mammut Industrial Group and Mammut Diesel)
by OFAC, ‘have nothing to do’ with JCPOA—2015, the Iran Nuclear
deal, abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018; the Department
spokesperson stressed that the United States ‘will continue to counter
Iran’s destabilising activities’ through sanctions (Al-Monitor 2021).
This book draws on a comparative analysis of Russia and Iran under
sanctions to back up a famous argument that the very emergence and
existence of contender states has been a result of counter-hegemonic
struggles, which have prompted the adoption of ‘Hobbesian’ regimes
(van der Pijl 1998). Notwithstanding the relentless enactment of sanc-
tions, target states have become more self-reliant, less democratic and
have taken a more aggressive posture towards the West. This research
addresses a crucial puzzle: why, even as sanctions have taken their toll
on targeted states and induced economic problems and trade disruptions,
have they been largely ineffective in terms of their stated objectives, such
as political deterrence, foreign policy change, public mobilisation against
contender governments, or a regime change. Despite initial economic
grievances in the short run, in the longer run, the effects of sanctions
have been paradoxical: the target states have managed to adjust to external
pressures, to develop internal self-protection mechanisms, and to mobilise
domestic resources and remodel income and wealth distribution.
The aim of this comparative study is to make an original contribution
to the understanding of the welfare state as a phenomenon, at the national
and transnational levels. The analysis of human welfare is central to a
holistic understanding of the contradictions inherent in the modern capi-
talist system that manifest themselves at times of crises. The development
of welfare states should be understood not only as an element of deindus-
trialisation (Iversen and Iversen 2010), social power resources (Baldwin
1996; Esping-Andersen 1985; Korpi 1983) or economic competitive-
ness (Rieger and Leibfried 2003), but also as the consequence of Cold
War confrontation, the post-9/11 new world order (Cerami 2009),
and more broadly the long-term geopolitical competition between ‘con-
tender’ states and the ‘Lockean heartland’ (van der Pijl 2012). This is
not the first historical materialist account of the welfare state (Gough
1 INTRODUCTION 3
2016; Jessop 2016; Offe 1985). However, it is the first attempt to inte-
grate welfare state research with structural analyses of counter-hegemonic
evolution in the international system and with global power dynamics.
This book closes this gap by developing a theoretical framework for
analysing counter-hegemonic mechanisms of the welfare state, and by
applying this framework to the cases of Russia and Iran under sanctions.
The contrast between Lockean heartland and Hobbesian contender states
provides a contextual ground for assessing the following questions:
– What are the mechanisms by which sanctions operate?

– What are the counter-mechanisms that make target states resilient to
sanctions?
In pursuit of these research questions, this book focuses primarily on

the ‘moment’ of sanctions and relates these to the Russian and Iranian
welfare state regime dynamics within the context of the longue durée of
state formation and geopolitical rivalry (Braudel 1958). The contribu-
tion to such a pursuit departs from the Amsterdam School conception
of a historical dialectic between a ‘Lockean heartland’ of the capitalist
global political economy emanating from the ‘Anglosphere’ and ‘Hobbe-
sian’ contender states (Gamble 2009). Power in the ‘Lockean heartland’
is based on the ability of a property-owning class to govern itself
(Macpherson 1954). However, this ‘self-government’ is subjugated to
the grand strategy of ‘opening up the contender state–society complexes,
dispossessing the state classes and replacing them by a governing class
submitting to liberal global governance’ (van der Pijl 2012). Economic
sanctions have become an important instrument of this grand strategy,
so the current period of sanctions provides a promising contextual
background for analysing contender states.
The analysis will be structured upon a novel Welfare State Regime
approach (hereafter WSR) that combines welfare state functionality with
neo-Gramscian institutional, economic and cultural structural dimen-
sions to capture the long-term social power dynamics in Russia and
Iran. WSR distinguishes such mechanisms by tracing socio-economic and
cultural processes that evolve in Russia and Iran under sanctions, and by
comparing a recent case of Russia to a relatively long-standing experi-
ence of Iran. Interestingly, despite cultural differences, Russia and Iran
reveal important structural, political and economic commonalities. To
4 K. KIRKHAM
confront the Lockean ‘heartland’, Russia and Iran increasingly inter-

nalise the features of a Hobbesian-type of governance, such as power
centralisation, para-constitutional reformation, economic diversification
and optimisation, human resource development and cadre formation.
Although the Russian and Iranian WSRs have been strengthened in
response to sanctions, the contradictory nature of counter-hegemonic
settings might significantly constrain further consolidation.
What are these contradictions? The book guides the reader through
counter-hegemonic mechanisms (hereafter CHM), assesses their strengths
and weaknesses and provides an effective summary table. The contradic-
tions reside in institutional instruments of social control (assessed in Part
II), in material capabilities of the state and the market (Part III), in strate-
gies for human resource development and social engineering when the
regime attempts to harmonise religion, democracy and private property
(Part IV). The apparent coincidence in the usage of the term ‘mech-
anism’ for both sanctions and counter-hegemony is not accidental: the
‘mechanisms’ of sanctions are only workable if they manage to rupture
the counter-hegemonic settings of the regime, therefore, both sanctions
and counter-hegemony will be analysed using the same operational vari-
ables. Also, it is important to distinguish between counter-hegemony
against the US-controlled Western institutions (neoliberal at present) and
counter-hegemony against neoliberalism per se,1 as these are not the
same things; current research is focused on the former rather than on
the latter. Overall, by telling a critical story of late modernity where non-
Western countries, such as Russia and Iran, cease to be ‘silent spectators,
marginal both historically and analytically’ (Pasha 2005), the analysis of
their welfare regimes contributes to welfare state theory in particular and
critical theory in general.
The book aspires to contribute to the current literature in three ways:
1 Neoliberalism is ‘an economic policy regime whose objective is to secure monetary

and fiscal stability and that is legitimised by an ideology that holds markets are best treated
as self-regulating. This has allowed the restoration of class power’ (Harvey 2014), and also
a dramatic redistribution of wealth and income in favour of the rich’ (Callinicos 2012:
67). Neoliberalism is ‘pro-supply-side’ state intervention’ by means of financialisation,
privatisation, and ‘new forms of authoritarianism from above, such as strict budgetary
discipline and regimes of permanent austerity’ (Fouskas and Gökay 2019: 151).
1 INTRODUCTION 5
1.1 Welfare State Theories and IPE

The WSR approach expands the comparative predominantly Western-
centric welfare state literature, by adding the cases of Russia and Iran, and
by addressing the shortcomings of the mainstream welfare state accounts,
as defined by Ian Gough—functionalist, economic and pluralist. Although
there are some valuable insights that are borrowed from these theo-
ries (especially from functionalists), WSR approach suggests three ways
of how to transcend them: first, by providing a holistic understanding
of human history to reduce the risk of siding with either subjective or
objective representations of welfare states as most mainstream theories do,
second, by examining the mechanisms of societal transformation, omitted
in most papers and third, by conceptualising welfare states within the
configuration of transnational forces.
The first direction implies borrowing Wood and Gough’s ‘middle
paths’ theory for analysing welfare states (Wood and Gough 2006) that
conceptualises the notion of power not only as the objectivity of capitalist
structures of social inequality but also as a subjectivity of ideologically
articulated political struggle over hegemony that has been successfully
applied by neo-Gramscian scholars to the study of European integration
(Cafruny and Ryner 2003). The second limitation is addressed by incor-
porating useful insights offered by functionalists (Wilensky 1975) that
were further developed by power resource theorists (Esping-Andersen
1990; Korpi 1983) by employing functional parameters of redistribution,
commodification and stratification as important mechanisms of social
transformation. Finally, the third theoretical shortcoming is overpassed
by placing the analysis of the WSR under sanctions, or a ‘target’ state,
into a neo-Gramscian framework that enables a broader conceptualisation
of transnational forces within the welfare–sanctions nexus, with a partic-
ular focus on contradictions inherent to global capitalism as a point for
theoretical departure, and on the contradictions of the WSR counter-
hegemonic mechanisms as a final point of theoretical inquiry. In other
words, a ‘welfare state’ theory is no longer just a static analysis of socio-
economic policies and practices, but also a holistic and dynamic portrait
of a society within a specific historical and geopolitical context that shapes
its further evolution.
The WSR approach contributes to the current IPE literature by refo-
cusing the long-standing debate over the effects of globalisation on
the changing role of the state (Althusser 1969; Burnham 2001; Cox
6 K. KIRKHAM
1981; Jessop 1982; Poulantzas 1974, and many more) to the notion
of welfare, which becomes a central binding category of the state as an
‘integral’ entity. The WSR approach reconciles the views concerning the
contentious concept of the state in contemporary IPE thought, where
‘many Gramscis are on offer’ (Germain and Kenny 1998: 8). WSR does
not position itself as an overwhelming substitution for the theory of
the state and rejects the possibility of the development of a general,
‘fully determinate’ theory, as a reductionism of one kind or another is
inevitable’ (Jessop 1982: 211). It rather proposes the ‘method of articu-
lation’, according to which the analysis of the state is set in a particular
historical conjuncture (such as economic sanctions) to understand the
conditions under which specific causal chains and contradictions (the
mechanisms of sanctions) might produce ‘contingently necessary effects’,
the welfare state regime outcomes (the counter-hegemonic mechanisms).
Moreover, it helps to integrate and to further develop the most valu-
able functionalist and power resource insights into the neo-Gramscian
dimension, which parallels with Robert Cox’s concept of a ‘historic
bloc’ that presents structural power as a blend of three categories of
‘potentials’—material capabilities, ideas and institutions (Cox 1981: 136).
The theoretical merger proceeds through a multidimensional concept
of ‘Self-protection of society’ (in Part I), which conflates power struc-
tures (institutional, material and cultural) with welfare state functions
(de-commodifying, redistributive and connecting) to arrive at the final
point of theoretical inquiry—counter-hegemonic mechanisms of the WSR
that constitute welfare state regime reproduction. Van der Pijl’s afore-
mentioned conception of a geopolitical dialectic between a ‘Lockean
heartland’ and ‘Hobbesian contender states’ offers the most propitious
point of departure for this, but WSR amplifies and extends the concep-
tion of the welfare state implied therein. Although van der Pijl advances
in capturing the main dynamics of the internal evolution of states, some-
times this happens at the expense of overlooking the countertendencies.
This book covers this, first, by viewing the heartland as heterogeneous
and internally variegated, which at times of crises perhaps has become
more Hobbesian, and second, by suggesting that the nature of contender
states might vary a lot owing to the particularities of their state–society
configurations.
1 INTRODUCTION 7
1.2 The Political Economy of Sanctions

Second, the book aspires to add to the literature on the political economy
of sanctions. Despite sustained debate about the adverse effects of sanc-
tions on social stability, there has been little evidence of their effectiveness:
sanctioned states maintained their foreign policy course and became
economically more self-reliant (Jerin 2015). Lee Jones in ‘Societies under
Siege’ maintains that the analysis of sanctions should go beyond the main-
stream theories, classified as the liberal, public choice, institutionalist and
neo-Weberian accounts, because they ignore the mechanisms by which
sanctions are ‘supposed to operate’ (for a detailed analysis, see Jones
2015). ‘Mainstream’ are ‘problem-solving’ theories grounded in founda-
tional ontology and positivist epistemology: by separating fact and values,
and claiming to avoid normative judgements and interpretive character-
isations, mainstream theories develop the notion of empirical causation
that aims at ‘establishing laws and certainties like those established in
the natural sciences’ (Savigny and Marsden 2011: 24–6). The application
of the neo-Gramscian concept of the state to the study of the mecha-
nisms of sanctions by Lee Jones has been a productive move away from
the mainstream accounts: the social conflict analysis (SCA) succeeded
in identifying the socio-political coalitions contesting state power, the
distribution of the economic impact across social groups, and the polit-
ical consequence of the response of the main social formations to the
economic impact of sanctions (Jones 2015: 39).
Jones conceptualises state capacities and functions as not ‘possessed’
by the state but as emerged historically and contingently, ‘reshaped and
constrained by societal power relations’ (Jones 2015: 36). Not only classes
and class fractions but also ethnic, religious and state-based groups are
crucial for social conflict analysis. The assessment of socio-economic and
political reactions of leading social groups to the economic impact of
sanctions has been a very informative and valuable contribution to the
understanding of the mechanisms of sanctions. However, these mech-
anisms in Jones’ analysis continue to be defined at a high level of
abstraction: further analysis of the ‘effectiveness’ of sanctions requires a
specification (definition) of mechanisms and an assessment of their contra-
dictory nature. With this aim, this book replaces the SCA with the welfare
state regime as the central focus of the investigation, considering it to
be a more powerful analytical tool in distinguishing the ‘mechanisms’ of
8 K. KIRKHAM
sanctions being the same operational variables as the counter-hegemonic

settings of the regime.
There are several reasons why the welfare state regime rather than
the SCA is a more suitable framework for analysing the ‘mechanisms’
of sanctions in Russia and Iran. First, the focus on the labour/capital
contradictions, embedded in welfare, reveals the institutional dynamism
of contender states. Jones maintained that by following Jessop’s and
Poulantzas’ historical reasoning (Jessop 2012; Poulantzas 1974) he
could move beyond the scope of structural power mechanisms into the
complexities of societal power relations. However, Jessop and Poulantzas
had different visions on the theory of the state (Jessop 1982: 181), and
it would have been more precise had Jones specified which account he
prioritised. For instance, in the case of Iraq, Poulantzas-like conceptualisa-
tion of the state at the structural level (Burnham 1994: 229) results in the
author’s focusing on the external linkages between sanctions and national
social groups, rather than on the dynamics of class conflict within the
global flow of capitalist social relations. In the case of South Africa, Jones’s
assessment of class struggle bears features of Structural Marxism, as social
formations obtain quite a static character and the future of the sanctioned
states is already contained in the dynamics of the present class struggle
(Booth 1985: 773). Jones rightfully suggests that through ‘conditioning
ruling groups’ strategies, sanctions can indirectly alter the coalitional basis
of the state, its institutional arrangements, its economic and ideolog-
ical programmes and its wider policies’ (Jones 2015: 39–43). However,
there is a potential problem that an abstract coalitional ‘ruling block’
will predetermine the institutional, economic and ideological programs
of the state. Technically, this makes the assessment of the static appa-
ratus of ‘state managers’ problematic, as it does not take into account the
dynamism of its members’ interests, ideas and strategies in response to
sanctions. Moreover, Jones believes that state institutions play a secondary
role in Gramscian theory, and that this is what fundamentally distinguishes
Gramscians and neo-Weberians (ibid.). However, referring to the analysis
of Risorgimento, it seems difficult to prioritise and delineate the insti-
tutional power of state apparatus from the Gramscian understanding of
state formation as the institution of political form of a ‘bourgeois’ state,
‘suitable to the expansion of capitalism’, that gained popular support
across Europe (Morton 2007: 65). With the aim of exploring the institu-
tional dynamism of contender state development, Jones’s analysis could
be complemented by considering the ‘shifting sands’ behind the process
1 INTRODUCTION 9
of state and class formation that lie in the labour/capital contradictions

(Burnham 1994), embedded in welfare (Gough 1979).
Second, Jones fairly stresses the importance of consideration of the
impact of transnational capitalist development on the composition of
social forces (Jones 2015: 41). However, his analysis of the effect of sanc-
tions upon various social groups seems to be taken out of neo-Gramscian
geopolitical contextual settings of hegemonic rivalry. It was a massive
social conflict within the state in South Africa that predetermined the
regime formation and domestic unrest that ‘drove the imposition of sanc-
tions’ (ibid.: 66). Interestingly, the Anglo-American heartland abstained
from the process: in 1985, Britain did not join the Commonwealth’s deci-
sion to adopt trade, investment and tourism embargoes, and again, in
1987, the US and British governments resisted the pressure from some
European states to impose anti-South Africa sanctions unilaterally (ibid.).
Therefore, sanctions played a supplementary rather than a leading role
in the internal process of the regime’s transformation, as sanctions were
the product of internal mass mobilisation, aided by anti-apartheid forces
driven abroad. Alternatively, the WSR approach will examine sanctions
within a broader geopolitical concept of capitalist rivalry.
Third, the SCA could be complemented by elaborating the counter-
hegemonic mechanisms for the formation of public ‘consent’. It remains
unspecified how the ideological orientation might make some social
groups ‘resign itself passively to its losses’ (Jones 2015: 43), especially
in a situation when the local responses to sanctions are ‘structurally
constrained by pre-existing social power relations and conflicts’. And
lastly, it is difficult to identify ‘the immediate economic impact of sanc-
tions on the target society’, the second step of the SCA, and almost
impossible to distinguish it from the effect of other factors (business
cycle, situation in the global markets, macroeconomic situation, etc.).
Jones outlines, that the intensity of the effectiveness of sanctions is iden-
tified via its influence on society’s basic compositions (giving rise to some
social groups while marginalising others) and on resources available to
ruling groups for ‘coercing, co-opting, or gaining consent from subor-
dinate groups’ (Jones 2015: 45). However, it would be interesting to
see how these two things correlate, as they are mutually dependent: the
resources that the ruling class requires depend on the composition of
society, while the way the society is ‘composed’, depends not only on the
effect of sanctions, but also on many other factors that this research is
planning to include into the welfare state regime settings. Therefore, the
impact of sanctions on various social groups would depend on the welfare
state regime layout.
10 K. KIRKHAM
1.3 The Political Economy of Russia and Iran

Third, the WSR approach contributes to the literature on the political
economy of Russia and Iran. Current accounts on Russia under sanctions,
due to its recency mainly address the effects of sanctions on Russia’s polit-
ical economy (Golikova and Kuznetsov 2017; Mau and Leonard 2017),
suggesting that Russia has been quite successful in adapting to the effects
of sanctions (Connolly 2018). However, the mechanisms through which
sanctions operate and the spectrum of transnational relations are under-
explored. Although some papers succeed in bringing global component
into analysis (Connolly 2018), the target country and the ‘wider global
economy’ remain separate entities where the domain of ‘international’
is external to domestic social power relations. The inclusion of an anal-
ysis of geopolitical forces in relation to counter-hegemonic mechanisms,
along with a supranational dimension into the concept of the welfare state
regime, shall complement the analysis. Also, there have been few, if any,
publications related to a holistic analysis of the Iranian’s and Russia’s
welfare state under sanctions, as non-Western accounts fall outside the
theoretical categorisations of the welfare states. Comparative welfare state
literature mainly focuses on Western capitalist states: most papers are
either narrowly focused on particular issues, such as health care, educa-
tion, poverty, inequality, etc., or are too extensive and assess welfare
policies in a macroeconomic context.
The Iranian case is far older and longer term (imposed since 1995 by
the US, and since 2006 by the UN) than the Russian case (imposed since
2014 by the US, the EU and some other states). Therefore, while the
impact of sanctions on Russian socio-economic development is still under
research, the amount of literature concerning Iran is substantial. All the
blame for Iran’s vulnerability to sanctions is laid on economic mismanage-
ment: over-reliance on oil revenues, insufficient economic diversification,
uncompetitive subsidised industries, a regressive tax regime, the lack
of foreign investment, unemployment, the brain drain, the marginal-
isation of the private sector, the prioritisation of Shia ideology over
national economic interests, corruption and the expansion of the black
market (Ghadar and Sobhani 2011: 23; Karshenas and Hakimian 2005:
90). Furthermore, sanctions are seen as the primary trigger for the
dramatic growth of the informal economy with the aid of the foreign
exchange market. There are opposing opinions regarding the effects of
the black market on Iranian welfare. Some authors admit that the black
1 INTRODUCTION 11
market has negatively impacted economic growth by contributing to the

budget deficit. However, a ‘moderately sized’ informal economy may
have improved political stability by providing job opportunities for young
people, thus reducing income inequality (Farzanegan 2013: 32). For
some, however, sanctions have not only failed to achieve their goals,
i.e. regime change and ‘democratisation’, but have instead contributed
to the regime’s empowerment, which might contribute to a contender
geopolitical posture and to the consolidation of the regime (Hakimian
2012; Naghavi and Pignataro 2015: 3). This view is supported by the
mainstream literature: it is believed that sanctions cause a more destabil-
ising effect on democratic rather than on non-democratic governments
(Lektzian and Souva 2007). Some authors (Escribà-Folch and Wright
2010), however, warn that ‘the extent to which sanctions destabilise a
non-democratic government depends on the type of authoritarian rule’
(Oechslin 2014: 25).
Russia’s role as a ‘contender’ has exemplified after the imposition of
sanctions in 2014. The impact of sanctions on Russian socio-economic
development is dynamic and still under research. If we consider the
literature on the causes of the anti-Russian sanctions, most authors
acknowledge that the imposition of sanctions was a ‘culmination of the
long-term crisis’ (Haukkala 2015: 25) that could be either blamed on
Russian aggression (McFaul et al. 2014), or on Western institutional
expansion, accompanied by the EU’s failure to establish a new framework
for military and security cooperation with Russia (Mearsheimer 2014), or
by the push by the United States to isolate Russia from Europe (Sakwa
2015). There is no debate in Western academia that the EU sanctions
were the ‘result of the illegal annexation of Crimea’, as recorded by the
UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262 (Milano 2014). Some authors
see Vladimir Putin as a ‘gambler’, who has become more ‘willing in
recent years to take major strategic risks to counter seemingly limited
and manageable threats to Russian interests’ (Treisman 2016). Others, by
contrast, justify Russia’s ‘aggressive regionalism’ by making historical eval-
uations and questioning the legitimacy of Nikita Khrushchev’s decision in
1954 to transfer Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, the lead-
er’s first steps after acquiring power (Müllerson 2014). Müllerson refers
to the fact that Crimea had been part of Russia since 1783, as the result of
the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by Queen Catherine the Great. Since
then, the port of Sevastopol has become Russia’s military base on the
Black Sea and remained so through a lease agreement between Russia and
12 K. KIRKHAM
Ukraine after the break-up of the Soviet Union. These historical evidences
made the author call Ukraine the ‘victim of geopolitics’ (ibid.: 141).
There is no agreement on the effects of sanctions on Russia, either.
As in the literature on Iran, some authors attribute the negative impacts
of the sanctions to government economic regulation flaws: (1) over-
reliance on oil revenues amid technological retardation of some upstream
and downstream oil and gas companies, highly dependent on the export
of pumping equipment, catalysts and applied software (import share of
50–80%) (Nureev and Busygin 2017), (2) insufficient economic diver-
sification, corruption, uncompetitive subsidised industries, a regressive
tax regime, the lack of foreign investment, financial and technological
shortcomings and the brain drain (Golikova and Kuznetsov 2017), (3)
growing budget financing of non-productive operating expenses (i.e. on
state administration, defence, law and order) that diverts resources away
from industrial modernisation and innovation (Mau and Leonard 2017).
However, a growing number of papers underline positive effects of sanc-
tions and counter-sanctions on the Russian economy. As observed by
Roger Munnings, the chairman of the Board of Russo-British Chamber
of Commerce (RBCC), sanctions ‘initially had the effect of depressing
economic growth in Russia, particularly as a result of limiting liquidity in
the economy through restricted availability of short and long term credits
for companies’, but later ‘the Russian corporate sector and banking system
has largely worked through this issue’, and ‘there has been the positive
effect of localisation of manufacture of goods and provision of services
provoking a more diversified and balanced economy than hitherto and
one in which small and medium sized enterprises have the opportunity to
prosper’.2 In fact, in the agricultural sector, as in some other sectors of
economy, import substitution policies have been successful in ensuring
the country’s security of food supplies (Polyanin and Moiseev 2016).
Richard Connolly believes that the adaptation to sanctions in Russia was
quite effective, because it was ‘overwhelmingly state-led’—permitting the
country’s leader to promptly utilise institutional, financial and diplomatic
tools and reallocate resources to minimise the negative impact of sanctions
(Connolly 2018: 189). The author rightfully points to ‘modification’ and
diversification of Russia’s foreign policy, import substitution and ‘Russifi-
cation’ of the military and the energy sectors, as well as to ‘sanitisation’
2 Author’s interview with the chairman of the Board of RBCC.

1 INTRODUCTION 13
and ‘securitisation’ of the financial sector and other adaptive fiscal and
monetary measures that permitted the country to evade a ‘full-blown
credit crunch’ (ibid.) For some, due to Russia’s ‘economic resilience’
sanctions have not only failed to achieve their goals, i.e. regime change
and ‘democratisation’, but have instead lead to the regime’s empower-
ment, which might contribute to a contender geopolitical posture and to
the consolidation of the regime (Littlejohn 2018; Volodin 2018).
Overall, there are three main flaws in the current accounts analysing the
‘effects’ of sanctions on the Russian and Iranian political economy that
explain why the mechanisms of sanctions, as well as CHMs that repro-
duce and protect the systems from collapse, remain underexplored. First,
current accounts aim to solve a problem of ‘if sanctions work’, not to
understand in what sense they might transform current socio-economic
arrangements. Second, they do not explicitly recognise the contradictory
nature of the impact of sanctions on the Russian and Iranian political
economy, which explains why the views concerning the effects of sanc-
tions appear so polarised. Third, Russia and Iran are analysed as entities,
separate from the processes that evolve in the global political economy.
Therefore, to better define the mechanisms, the theoretical scope of the
accounts on the effects of sanctions should be widened with reference to
the contradictory nature of the welfare state development and to geopo-
litical forces other than the sanctions themselves. The inclusion of an
analysis of geopolitical forces in relation to counter-hegemonic mecha-
nisms, along with a supranational dimension in the concept of the welfare
state regime, shall complement the analysis.
1.4 Book Outline

Part I indicates the theoretical background for the analysis and explains
why the notion of welfare has become central to the understanding of
Russia’s and Iran’s counter-hegemony under sanctions and why the neo-
Gramscian perspective will be applied for analysing the welfare state.
The contender state’s self-protection constitutes the core of counter-
hegemony and is exercised through the regime’s reproduction alongside
its structural and functional terrains. Functional modes evolve through
its de-commodifying, redistributive and connecting capabilities, while
structural modes are secured by strengthening the institutional mecha-
nisms of social control (institutional), by securing the future potential
14 K. KIRKHAM
of the socio-economic base (material) and by transforming the modali-

ties of social behaviour and attitudes (cultural—ideological). As the WSR
approach is considered both a theoretical framework and a powerful tool
for analysing counter-hegemonic mechanisms, Chapter 2 examines the
welfare state regime as a theoretical account, following the consistent path
from functionalists, structuralist accounts, from Wood and Gough’s Insti-
tutional responsibility matrix (IRM) and the authors’ conceptualisation
of the interrelation between transnational forces to the neo-Gramscian
analysis of counter-hegemony (Wood and Gough 2006). Chapter 3 intro-
duces a reverse logical sequence, from Gramsci to welfare, to justify
the centrality of the concept of welfare state regime when assessing
CHMs within the moment of sanctions as a ‘situation’ in the Grams-
cian sense (Gramsci 1971). This self-reinforcing trajectory will complete
the theoretical consolidation between the Gramscian and welfare state
accounts arriving at the merger point, located in the notion of counter-
hegemonic mechanisms, to initiate the exploration of the main theoretical
research question: ‘What are the counter-hegemonic mechanisms embedded
in welfare state regimes that make ‘contender’ states resilient to sanc-
tions?’ This theoretical adaptation will be followed by operationalisation
of analysis through the concept of the Self-protection of society, gradually
developed and applied throughout core empirical Parts.
Part II assessed how the counter-hegemonic structural mode of WSR
reproduction has been secured in Russia and Iran via strengthening
the institutional mechanisms of social control. The part demonstrates
how centralisation of state and civil institutions, monopolisation of the
strategic sectors of the economy and para-constitutional settings in Russia
and Iran have become counter-hegemonic mechanisms that, on one side,
enabled the accumulation of resources necessary to restore decommodi-
fying capabilities of the pension system and to reverse the monetisation
reforms, while on another side, intensified institutional dualism and its
stratifying effect on social formations. The institutional power struc-
ture of the welfare state regime that is responsible for the dynamism
of contender state development. The analysis will be focused on the
institutional arrangements: (a) the role of the country’s legislation and
state institutions in overall welfare coverage (decommodification); (b) the
institutionally grounded shifts in class and status disparities (wealth redis-
tribution); and (c) legislative and institutional WSR arrangements that
restored or impeded the formation of social solidarity (connection). All
1 INTRODUCTION 15
three (a, b, c) are the variables that constitute the institutional mecha-
nisms of social control, in an attempt to harmonise religion, democracy
and private property.
Part III considers how the counter-hegemonic structural mode of
Russia and Iran has been secured via enhancing the material capacity
and future potential of the socio-economic base, in the face of uneven
development of global capitalism and the country’s dependence on global
markets. In both Russia and Iran, financial consolidation, the course of
technological modernisation, economic diversification and active region-
alism have been productive steps in building up the material capacity of
the regime. However, the reliance of large businesses on state support and
‘patron–client’ relationships ultimately limits business efficiency, induces
corruption and in some cases disrupts incentives for creativity and inno-
vation. The WSR material capabilities are determined by: (a) households’
dependence on the market in overall welfare coverage (decommodifi-
cation); (b) wealth creation and wealth distribution: the poverty and
inequality dynamics (primary and secondary wealth distribution); and (c)
formal and inf ormal channels for cooperation and investment opportuni-
ties (connection). All three (a, b, c) constitute material capabilities of the
WSR. The processes, generated from the material power structure of the
WSR triggered the following counter-hegemonic mechanisms, to name
a few: modernisation of the economy, import substitution programs,
counter-sanctions, the optimisation of socio-economic policies, including
some austerity measures, further consolidation of the budgetary system
(intra-budgetary redistribution), enhanced state control over capital flows,
tax reforms, with the aim of creating fiscal stimuli for technological
modernisation and domestic demand formation.
Part IV examines the cultural power structure of the welfare state
regime that corresponds to the ability of contender states to transform
the modalities of social behaviour, practices, personal orientation and
attitudes. The ideology of statecraft in Russia, with its discourse of ‘oth-
erness’ and new cadre formation, and Shia political system in Iran, with
its communitarian postulates, partially helped to consolidate society at
the macro-level and to obtain public support for economic centralisa-
tion. However, civil society hierarchy, familialism and other forms of
informal relationships in both states disrupt labour bargaining power
and cohesion, while further centralisation of control over civil society
institutions might make state–civil society dialogue excessively bureau-
cratised and inflexible. The analysis is focused on the following cultural
16 K. KIRKHAM
arrangements: (a) people’s perception of their dependence on markets

(decommodification); (b) interpersonal tolerance to income, class and
status disparities (wealth redistribution); and (c) social interactions based
on shared values that form national identity (connection). All three (a,
b, c) are the variables that constitute the cultural mechanisms of social
control, based on ideology, strategies for human resource development
and social engineering.
Part V is an integral chapter of the current research: Russia’s and
Iran’s welfare state regime reproduction is a synthesis of the processes
that unfolded within these societies during the period of economic
sanctions, previously identified in the main empirical chapters. This is
a comparative analysis that discloses, clarifies, defines the character of
the counter-hegemonic mechanisms in Russia and Iran and assesses the
strengths and weaknesses of the counter-hegemonic settings. This part
is accompanied by an effective summary of CHM and its contradictions
(in Appendices I and II ). The answer to the question of ‘what are the
counter-hegemonic mechanisms embedded in welfare state regimes (WSR)
that make ‘contender’ states resilient to sanctions?’ distinguished counter-
hegemonic mechanisms for Russia and Iran. The answer to the question
of ‘how strong are the counter-hegemonic settings of the Russian welfare
state regime?’ implied further analysis of the contradictory nature of
CHMs that unveiled five common trends in the Russian and Iranian WSR
evolution: power centralisation; economic modernisation and optimisation;
strategic partnership and diversification; para-constitutional reformation;
human resource development. Both the Russian and the Iranian welfare
state regime under sanctions have become more Hobbesian in nature, to
render collective self-protection of their sovereignty against the ‘evils’ of
the state of nature and geopolitical pressures.
Overall, the book reinstates the relevance of the Hobbesian/Lockean
dichotomy for analysing societies in transition, as it touches upon the
grounds of political philosophy that might produce valuable arguments
to challenge the status of the dominant ideological paradigm of the
modern global political economy. It also concludes that the Russian
and the Iranian WSRs have been strengthened in response to sanc-
tions, however, the contradictory nature of CHMs significantly constrains
further consolidation.
1 INTRODUCTION 17
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PART I
Theoretical Identification of the Mechanisms

of Sanctions
Abstract Part I develops the ground for the theoretical merger and
shows how it is correlated to the structure of the empirical Parts II, III
and IV, devoted to institutional, material and cultural capabilities of the
WSR, consequently. The welfare state regime approach (WSR) is consid-
ered both a theoretical framework and a powerful tool for analysing
counter-hegemonic mechanisms. Chapter 2 examines the welfare state
regime as a theoretical account, following the consistent path from func-
tionalists, structuralist accounts, from Wood and Gough’s Institutional
responsibility matrix to the neo-Gramscian analysis of counter-hegemony.
Chapter 3 introduces a reverse logical sequence, from Gramsci to welfare,
to justify the centrality of the concept of WSR within the moment of
sanctions as a ‘situation’ in the Gramscian sense. This self-reinforcing
trajectory completes the theoretical consolidation between the Gramscian
and welfare state accounts arriving at the merger point—the concept of
the Self-protection of society,1 gradually developed and applied throughout
core empirical chapters.
1 The contender state’s self-protection constitutes the core of counter-hegemony

and is exercised through the regime’s reproduction alongside its structural and func-
tional terrains. Functional modes evolve through its de-commodifying, redistributive and
connecting capabilities, while structural modes are secured by strengthening the institu-
tional mechanisms of social control (institutional), by securing the future potential of the
socio-economic base (material), and by transforming the modalities of social behaviour
and attitudes (cultural—ideological).
22 PART I: THEORETICAL IDENTIFICATION …
Keywords Welfare state regime, Counter-hegemony
Introduction to Part I
Theoretical identification departs from existing mainstream and critical
welfare state theories, to consider what insights could be helpful for
defining the mechanisms of sanctions, and consequently, the counter-
hegemonic settings of Russia and Iran. The most consistent subdivision of
welfare theories was offered by Ian Gough, who divided them into ‘eco-
nomic theories of government policy’, ‘pluralist theories of policymaking’
and ‘functionalist theories of the welfare state’ by simply following the
logic of their scientific genesis—economics (classical liberals), political
science and sociology, respectively. As the capitalist system has expanded,
‘globalised’ and became more complex, so have the theories, and these
boundaries have become blurred.
Classical liberals (‘economic theorists’) are located further away than
other welfare state theories from the effective conceptualisation of the
counter-hegemonic mechanisms, as the analysis of economic develop-
ment is isolated from ‘social relations and from specific social structures’
(Gough 1979: 6). Also, transnational forces are ignored, even when
some authors refer to a global dimension when analysing integration and
Europeanisation (Kvist and Saari 2007), or globalisation (Deacon 2007;
Swank 2005), the interrelation between transnational forces and welfare
state regimes (global dimension) remained unformulated. This is because
liberal accounts tend to subjectify the evolution of capitalism. For them,
the alteration of attitudes in the wake of technological progress is the main
driving force behind welfare state evolution rather than increasing needs
of the global capitalist system to sustain social reproduction as the result
of its expanded exploitative powers. Richard Titmuss, who examined the
principle of universalism as an outcome of the horrifying experience of
more of a century of ‘turmoil, revolution, war and change’ believed that
the changing philosophy of welfare in the minds of people, the fear of the
risk of military conflict and mass destruction, rather the changing forces
of production lead to the emergence of the welfare state, as the base for
prevention of ‘the vicious descending spiral of poverty, disease, neglect,
illiteracy and destitution’ (Titmuss 1958). As a result, when analysing the
welfare state, classical liberals mainly focus on the change in public senti-
ment towards poverty, the development of welfare philosophies, and the
PART I: THEORETICAL IDENTIFICATION … 23
transformation in tastes and expanding needs of the working class as the

main factors that affect welfare legislation (Briggs 1961).
Pluralists contribute to the understanding of the welfare state with their
subjective interpretation of what might constitute general principles of
action in light of human values, therefore recognising the creative role
of individuals in human history. The comparative analysis of capitalism
and the welfare state-centred on the micro-level of the private sector. For
instance, Hall and Soskice bring the action-oriented individuals, firms,
trade unions, and other ‘business associations’ back into their analysis,
to discover relationships among these actors in the political economy
(Hall and Soskice 2001: 4). Pluralists share the individualistic method-
ology expressed by classical economists (Friedman 1962; Hayek 1944),
according to which capitalism in its pure sense was an inherently stable
social system based on individual freedom and private ownership, and
therefore is a self-regulating system, as objective psychological human
factors were the natural driving force towards economic equilibrium,
while governmental intervention is blocking the action of these natural
regulators. Pluralists adopt the liberal definition of the welfare state that
would generally refer to the forms, procedures, rules and instruments,
but not to state functions (Offe 1985a: 88). Welfare state is seen as
an undemocratic and inefficient development of modern capitalism that
needs to be forgone, as it is inconsistent with the liberal conceptualisa-
tion of human freedom (Hayek 1944). This neo-classical visualisation of
capitalism as a ‘free to choose’ nation of individuals, where everything
obeys the will of man (Friedman and Friedman 1980), and the under-
explored functionality of the welfare state, evades going deep into the
objective laws of hegemonic (and counter-hegemonic) mechanisms that
predetermine not only the functioning but also the evolution of capi-
talism. In other words, pluralists are mired in actor-based definitions and
conflict case studies, which subjectify social reality and downplay the role
of institutions and other material structures.
This pluralist insistence on the subjective element in understanding
human history had been successfully overcome by functionalists in their
search for the technological, industrial or modernising backgrounds of the
welfare policy in response to meet the emerging needs of society (Flora
and Heidenheimer 1981; Marshall 1950; O’Connor 1973; Wilensky
1975). An example of such objectification is the revelation of a central
paradox of capitalism by T.H. Marshall: the rights of citizenship are ‘the
foundation of equality on which the structure of inequality could be
built’ (Marshall 1950). Another positive result of this objectification is the

observation of Harold Wilensky (1975) that the welfare state is a struc-
tural tendency of different modern societies that could be explained by
economic and bureaucratic factors, with a warning that ‘public bureaucra-
cies are by nature self-expanding, self-aggrandising, and thus impossible
to phase out when they have outlived their usefulness’ (Wilensky 1975:
114). However, some critics maintain, functionalists tend to omit the role
of human beings and see policy developments ‘as a passive response’ to
social forces: as a result, they distinguish only one side, the objective, of
the contradiction of capital—the forces of production, leaving no room
for humans as active interest groups (Gough 1979: 8). At the same time,
despite the recognition of a visible convergence of bureaucratic practices
among various advanced societies, functionalists, nevertheless, pointed
out ‘many indications that things are not the same everywhere’ (ibid.:
113), which, however, are underexplored due to the ‘lack of compara-
tive data’ (Wilensky 1975: 107). Costa Esping-Andersen replenished this
gap in comparative analysis of the welfare state by creating a genuine
framework in ‘Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism’ and expanding the
welfare state functionality by relevant variables of economic liberalisation
and ‘working-class mobilisation’ (Esping-Andersen 1990: 19). Overall,
however, despite all the useful insights, functionalist vision of welfare
suffers from ‘technological determinism’: by bypassing the role of class
conflict as a ‘revolutionary rupture in human history’, it ignores the role
of the welfare state ‘as a controlling, repressive agency’ (Gough 1979:
8). Nevertheless, functionalist accounts provided important insights for
the development of the concept of the welfare state as a product of
contradictions and shifts in industrial development, complemented by an
institutionalised ‘powerful societal mechanism which divisively shaped the
future’ (Esping-Andersen 1990: 221).
Another important step forward by functionalist and structuralist
welfare state theories, be they industrialisation (Kerr et al. 1960; Myles
and Quadagno 2002; Rimlinger 1971; Wilensky 1975), globalisation,
deindustrialisation (Iversen and Cusack 2000), modernisation (Marshall
1950, Wilensky 1975) or integration (Cary 1974), is the recognition and
the explanation of some important aspects of the welfare state’s evolu-
tion. The problem with these theories, however, lies in their underlying
logics that is not capable of separating internal and external mecha-
nisms for change and differentiation. For instance, the ‘industrialisation’
thesis that attributes the welfare state’s expansion to sustainable economic
growth (Kerr et al. 1960) fails to explain the diversities within the welfare
state regimes of similar economically developed states, and most impor-
tantly, do not investigate the mechanisms of transformation, central to
the understanding of the CHMs and the mechanisms of sanctions, aimed
at breaking these counter-hegemonic settings. Furthermore, the ‘mod-
ernisation’ thesis, the most prominent of its time, maintains that the
transformation of the population from ‘subjects’ to ‘citizens’ with the
assistance of the welfare state was necessary for the formation of a system
of social equality based on civil rights (Marshall 1950). The mechanisms
of change—the development of social rights—however, were invalidated
by the effects of market-generated inequalities. A smooth transition to a
socially just society, which the modernisation theory proposes, is further
challenged by the Korpi’s power resource model, which places the welfare
state in the battlefield of social classes, mobilised through distributive
processes within society (Korpi 1983, 1989). Despite being criticised for
downplaying the role of the middle class in its analysis of social democra-
cies (Baldwin 1996), power resource theory introduced useful analytical
insights insofar as it stresses the importance of considering the balance
of class power as a determinative for social reforms. Esping-Andersen
made a considerable step forward in the conceptualisation of the welfare
state by introducing the parameters of commodification and stratifica-
tion into Korpi’s power resource model. These key indicators are central
to his genuine typological division of Western capitalist societies into
conservative, liberal and social democratic (Esping-Andersen 1990).
To sum up, functionalist theories and power resource accounts provide
us with important functional dimensions that would be incorporated in
the welfare state regime approach. However, there are three reasons why
the capacity of mainstream theories to identify counter-hegemonic mecha-
nisms of welfare state regimes is limited. First, such theoretical approaches
suffer from narrowness, ‘fatally weakened by the insistence on either
the objective or the subjective element in understanding human history’
(Gough 1979: 10). Second, the underlying logics of most functionalist,
structuralist or classical economic welfare state theories, can explain some
aspects of the welfare state’s evolution, but have not been capable of sepa-
rating internal and external mechanisms for change and differentiation,
an ‘immense diversity of social policies which any comparative survey
will reveal’ (Gough 1979: 9). Third, mainstream welfare state theories
consider transnational forces as an isolated parameter that might affect
the formation of the welfare state, but they never see global dimension as
integral to the concept of welfare state regime. Overall, the visualisation

of the processes outlined by mainstream authors, such as industrialisation,
modernisation, urbanisation and technological change, lacks structural
identification that is essential for discovering a historical-materialistic
ground for the welfare state, and for understanding the CHMs. As Göran
Therborn once suggested, ‘lots of theories have been used to try to
explain the rise of welfare states, but little theoretical effort has been used
to capture the various meanings and structural implications of welfare
states’ that are central to the formation of the counter-hegemonic mech-
anisms (Therborn 1987: 238). The following passages will consider how
these three limitations have been overcome by alternative welfare state
theories.
Alternative Welfare State Theories or How to

Overcome Existing Limitations
The investigation of the counter-hegemonic processes that evolve in
Russia and Iran requires an alternative interpretation of the welfare
state that sees the emergence and transformation of the welfare state
as a constituent of capitalist spatial and worldwide temporal reach. This
section addresses the puzzle of how existing critical accounts might help
to elaborate the ‘structural implications’, mentioned by Therborn, for
the analysis of counter-hegemonic mechanisms, with respect to three
previously outlined theoretical drawbacks (objective/subjective duality,
mechanisms of transformation and global dimension).
The first step in capturing CHM of the welfare state is to address the
first critical remark against the mainstream theories concerning the insis-
tence on either the objective or the subjective element in understanding
human history. Departure from this deadlock has been successfully estab-
lished by neo-Gramscian scholars (van Apeldoorn and Hager 2010;
Cafruny and Ryner 2003; Wood and Gough 2006). Drawing upon the
existing literature on the welfare state, this departure will proceed in
two stages. To begin with, the research will follow Wood and Gough’s
‘middle path’ theory, a mediator between teleological functionalist and
post-modern stances, as the authors themselves have suggested (Wood
and Gough 2006: 1697). The ‘middle’ ground means the use of methods
of historical materialism by applying the analysis of the capitalist mode
of production to the object of the study—the welfare state; Ian Gough
suggested that the ‘only satisfactory resolution to this dilemma’ is encap-

sulated in Marx’s dictum: ‘Men make their history… but not under
circumstances of their own choosing’ (Marx, cited in Gough 1979: 10).
The next step will be to apply Gramscian reasoning to surpass the subjec-
tive–objective duality by uncovering ‘the social power relations that shape
the socio-economic content’ of the welfare state regime (van Apeldoorn
and Hager 2010: 213).
An example of a successful conceptualisation of power, not only as
the objectivity of capitalist structures of social inequality but also as the
subjectivity of ideologically articulated political struggle over hegemony,
can be found in Cafruny and Ryner’s study of European integration
(Cafruny and Ryner 2003). Their analysis of the European Union encap-
sulates both the highest level of abstraction that identifies the interests
of distinct capitalist class forces, ‘which constitute the structural basis for
hegemonic projects’, but also moves to a more concrete empirical level,
where these structural interests are transformed, ‘changing the balance of
class forces within any historical conjuncture’ (van Apeldoorn and Hager
2010: 213). This objective-subjective synergy came as a crucial departure
from the functionalist conceptualisation of the European welfare state as
the outcome of the EU’s institutional dynamics.
The second step to identify the CHM is to respond to the crit-
ical remark concerning the inability of mainstream accounts to delineate
internal and external mechanisms for change when analysing the welfare
state’s evolution. Once again, neo-Marxist and neo-Gramscian accounts
provide us with a solution: counter-hegemonic mechanisms are located in
the conflictual area of social power relations (internal), and the contra-
dictory nature of global capitalist development (external)—they are ‘laws
of social transformation’ that are to be understood as tendencies and
probabilities rather than ‘iron laws of history’ (Marx 1973 ed., cited in
Hartwick and Peet 2009: 157). Therefore, the analysis of the welfare
state should begin with the study of the contradictions inherent to capi-
talism, as shifts in social power relations generate internal and external
mechanisms for change. The welfare state in itself is such a ‘shift’,
or development that evolves in response to the paradoxes of capital.
However, as observed by James O’Connor (1973), Ian Gough (1979),
Claus Offe (1985), instead of resolving the tensions inherent in capi-
talism, the welfare state develops contradictions of its own, ‘trying to
fulfil two basic and often mutually contradictory functions – accumu-
lation and legitimisation’ (O’Connor 1973: 6). Moreover, ‘subsidiary
contradictions’, hidden in the planning failures in the fiscal and in

mass loyalty problems, systematically restrict the effectiveness and the
legitimacy of the welfare state (Offe 1985a). The analysis of the basic
contradictions at the heart of the capital relation worked very well in
understanding and predicting the crisis in contemporary Europe. On
the threshold of the crisis, a group of scholars expressed their concern
with accumulation strategies, state projects and hegemonic visions and
their social bases as ‘their particular forms of appearances’ questioned
the legitimacy of the finance-led neoliberal mode of European gover-
nance ‘from Lisbon to Lisbon’ (van Apeldoorn, Drahokoupil, and Horn
2009). Internal and external mechanisms for change in Europe are guided
by post-industrial ‘new Malthusian re-articulation’ that substituted the
credible political project with structural–functional objectivity that pres-
sures for retrenchment of the ’mature’ welfare states (Ryner 2009: 45).
As such, as the welfare states change and modify over time, a contin-
uous study of the contradictions is vital not only for understanding how
sanctions affect the target sates, such as Russia and Iran, but also for
assessing the dynamics of modern social policies in various societies,
as it enables the policymakers to see why these arrangements some-
times fail to meet public expectations (Kirkham 2017). The third move
to capture the CHM of welfare states is to formulate the interrelation
between transnational forces and welfare state regimes. In the desire
to include non-Western societies in their research, Wood and Gough
(2006: 1697) extended four domestic domains (state, market, house-
hold and community) to their supranational equivalents (international
governmental organisations, global markets, NGOs and internationalised
households), which constitute the Institutional Responsibility Matrix.
What are Wood and Gough’s contributions to the comparative study
of non-Western social policy experience? First, as previously mentioned,
Wood and Gough extended the concept of the welfare state regime by
introducing the global dimension that links four domestic domains (state,
market, household and community) to their supranational equivalents.
Second, Wood and Gough developed a ‘new conceptual framework within
which to consider a wider range of institutions than is normally acknowl-
edged in social policy discourses’: the authors add an analytical focus on
community to the traditional triad of state, market and household (Wood
and Gough 2006: 1697). Admitting that neither markets, states nor fami-
lies alone can provide sustainable arrangements for meeting human needs,
their intervention is to integrate these three categories, and their interna-

tional equivalents, into a new conceptual framework. This allows them
to broaden the parameters of Esping-Andersen’s welfare state regime
typology and thus address the welfare dimension of ‘informal security’ as
well as ‘insecurity’ regimes. This step is particularly crucial for analysing
the informal welfare provisions in Russia and Iran, to see whether people
in these countries heavily rely upon communal relationships to meet their
security needs. Third, the authors extended the Esping-Andersen’s func-
tional representation of welfare state. The function of de-commodification
was amplified by a parallel criterion of ‘de-clientelisation’, which embraces
non-state-centred actors, recovering the rights and entitlements from
the ‘informal domains of social relationships and cultural expectations’
(ibid.: 1697). The function of stratification has become a derivative of
the ability of the system to reproduce itself. The welfare state function-
ality is the connecting juncture between theory and research procedure
of the current project.
To summarise, two features of Wood and Gough’s ‘welfare mix’—
the communal and global dimensions—are especially innovative: the first
being the transformative step from the Esping-Andersen’s triad of state–
market–family into a square by adding the ‘community’ domain; the
second being a ‘supranational equivalent of the four domestic compo-
nents’. An attempt by Wood and Gough to conceptualise the interrelation
was a significant achievement, when they broadened the parameters of
Esping-Andersen’s welfare state regime typology and extrapolated it to
the supranational level. This move, though one of the most remarkable
over the past decade, is not sufficient, since their understanding of the
‘international’ has been reduced to a linear extrapolation of social power
relations into the supranational terrain, without reference to the histor-
ical context. A conceptualisation of the dialectics between transnational
forces and welfare state regimes is required. The novelty of the current
framework is to combine Wood and Gough’s regime approach with
the neo-Gramscian perspective for analysing national and transnational
dimensions of the welfare state regime.
The WSR approach is seen as both a theoretical framework (direction
one) and a powerful tool (direction two) for analysing counter-hegemonic
tendencies in contender states. Thus, the theoretical Part I consists of
two short chapters: Chapter 2 will examine the welfare state regime as
a theoretical account, following the consistent path from functionalists,
structuralist accounts, from Wood and Gough’s Institutional responsi-

bility matrix (IRM) and the authors’ conceptualisation of the interrelation
between transnational forces to the neo-Gramscian analysis of counter-
hegemony. The main goal is to further develop the institutional, func-
tional, structural and global dimensions, departing from functionalist
accounts, and via Wood and Gough’s regime approach—arrive at neo-
Gramscian supranational articulation of the structuring role of geopolit-
ical pressures, including but not limited to sanctions, to understand how
global economic integration (or the lack thereof) affects welfare state
regimes in non-Western social formations. Chapter 3 will introduce a
reverse logical sequence, from Gramsci to welfare, to justify the centrality
of the concept of welfare state regime when assessing counter-hegemonic
mechanisms within the moment of sanctions as a ‘situation’ in the Gram-
scian sense (Gramsci 1971). This self-reinforcing trajectory will complete
the theoretical consolidation between the Gramscian and welfare state
accounts arriving at the counter-hegemonic mechanisms - a merger point
which is located in the notion of ‘consent, backed by coercion’.
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CHAPTER 2
The Welfare State Regime as a Theoretical

Account: From Welfare State to Gramsci
2.1 First Theoretical Adaptation:

From Functional Representation
of the Welfare State to ‘Regime’ Approach
The welfare state functionality—one of the central components of the
counter-hegemonic mechanisms—has been developed in response to the
contradictions of capital inherent not only to advanced Western soci-
eties but also to states with transitional economies, such as Russia and
Iran. Functionalist theories are at their most valuable in their ability to
specify the mechanisms of transformation of the welfare state regimes,
vital for the assessment of the dynamism of the counter-hegemonic mech-
anisms. This dynamism partly materialises through the main functions of
the welfare state. The first important function is de-commodification, as
for functionalists, the evolution of the welfare state was a response to
the emerging needs of the ‘Industrial man’, increasingly dependent on
wages in the society that progressed to the ‘stage of total industrialisa-
tion’, in which patrimonial agrarian traditions were in decline (Kerr et al.
1960). De-commodification was playing an important role in ‘ensuring
the smooth functioning of industrial societies’ that became an unques-
tionable ‘weaker’ theoretical version of the evolution of the welfare state
(Myles and Quadagno 2002). This view significantly overlaps not only
with the ‘power resource’ discourse related to the societal need for the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 33

Switzerland AG 2022
K. Kirkham, The Political Economy of Sanctions: Resilience
and Transformation in Russia and Iran, International Political
Economy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04055-9_2
34 K. KIRKHAM
tools of de-commodification (Esping-Andersen 1990), but also with the

analysis of the role of the state as the main guarantor of social stability
through reconciliation of rival structural necessities of capitalism, ‘condi-
tioned by the continuous requirements of the accumulation process’ (Offe
1985a: 121). Possibly, this is due to the significance of Karl Polanyi’s
reflection of the Great Transformation of market societies on increas-
ingly commodified labour power (Polanyi 2001/1944). These functional
industrial pressures on the modern capitalist state have been exemplified
by demographic changes, characterised by an ‘increased proportion of old
people in the population, which has become the most powerful root of
welfare spending’ (Wilensky 1975: 47). According to functionalists, these
demographic changes should be analysed alongside other no less impor-
tant factors that affect ‘spacial landscapes’, such as the rate of economic
growth (Wilensky 1975), the nature of class relations and urbanisation as
the product of industrialisation of the capitalist, but also post-socialist and
Islamic societies, such as Russia and Iran, respectively.
The function of redistribution became the second important parameter
of the welfare state. Highly functionalist in their essence, power resource
models institutionalised the balance of class power as a central driver
for social reforms and wealth distribution. Esping-Andersen recognised
class coalitions as vehicles of wealth redistribution in social democratic
states, such as Sweden (Esping-Andersen 1985). Also, the class structure
analysis integrated the role of the middle classes in the development of
social democracies (Baldwin 1996). The third parameter of stratification
was also introduced by Esping-Andersen in his further conceptualisa-
tion of the Korpi’s power resource model. Thus, commodification and
stratification became key indicators for his genuine typological division
of Western capitalist societies into conservative, liberal and social demo-
cratic. The distinctions are drawn from two central questions: how nations
respond to the pressures of commodification via the three most important
social programs, i.e. pension, sickness and unemployment cash benefit
(ibid.: 49), and what effects stratification achieves on the articulation of
social solidarity. In response to commodification, ‘conservative’ regimes
developed ‘corporativist’, ‘etatist’ and ‘pre-capitalist’ arrangements, which
differentiated social insurance according to occupation or status. The
ruling class feared that ‘the onward march of liberalism, democracy
and capitalism would destroy the institutions upon which social power
and privileges were based’. ‘Liberal’ regimes promoted residual means-
testing principles, which limited the effect of decommodification; the
2 THE WELFARE STATE REGIME AS A THEORETICAL … 35
marginal propensity of the stigmatised population to refer to welfare aid

was very low. Social democratic regimes, with their universalist logic,
kept differentials in benefits at the lowest level, maximising the capacity
of the individual by providing the highest standards of social services
(Esping-Andersen 1990: 41–69).
2.1.1 Regime Approach

The welfare state typology, however, remained focused on the national
historical-cultural transformation of advanced capitalist societies. As a
result of typologising, which Peter Baldwin considered the ‘lowest form
of intellectual endeavour’ (Baldwin 1996: 29), power resource approaches
appear to be not extensive enough to analyse the mechanisms through
which transnational forces affect the development of welfare states, as
the delineation for the welfare state regime categories lies at the national
level and is analytically bound to the historic development of the social
formations domestically, without much articulation of international forces
upon this process. At the same time, functionalists do not explore the
contradictory nature of de-commodification, redistribution and stratifica-
tion. The initial theoretical adaptations imply modification of the welfare
state functionality: the WSR overcomes these theoretical limitations, by
modifying the functional representation in two ways. First, the analysis
is placed in a geopolitical context. Second, the regime functionality is
formulated, following a ‘middle path’ theoretical endeavour, balancing
between ‘instrumentalism’, on one side, and ‘hyper-functionalism’, on
another, in a manner, proposed by Ian Gough (1979) in the ‘Political
Economy of the Welfare State’, and advanced by Wood and Gough’s
(2006) in a comparative study of the non-Western welfare state ‘regimes’
(Wood and Gough 2006: 1697). The second theoretical adaptation
implies substitution of ‘stratification’ with the function of connection,
given that counter-hegemony presupposes the welfare state consolidation
through socialisation and mobilisation of different social classes, while
stratification is the constraining force, or in some cases a by-product of
this contradictory process. The connecting function of the WSR will trace
counter-hegemonic mechanisms embedded in new forms of ‘emancipa-
tory struggles’ within civil society that could no longer be reducible to
class conflicts alone (Jean Cohen, quoted in Pierson 1984: 568). These
three functions—de-commodification, redistribution and connection will
become functional modes for the welfare state regime reproduction.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
some other dry thing, high up in the air.
Did you ever see a piece of mistletoe? It grows on some tree. It has
nice green leaves and white berries. That the mistletoe draws all its
food from the air has been proved. It thrives as well on a dead tree
as on a live one. A Frenchman, who loved to study plants, made a
mistletoe plant grow on a cannon ball. Another mistletoe sprouted
and grew from a seed held out on the point of a copper needle.
Thus, you see, these air-plants gain all their food from the air.
Water-plants will seem to you to grow in a more natural way. Most of
them are rooted in the earth at the bottom of the pond, or ditch,
where they grow. As the blossoms form, the flower stem grows long,
and the flower rises to the top of the water.
There the lovely blossom floats about in the sunshine. It is moored
by its long stem to the root, as a boat is moored by a rope. When the
seeds are ripe, the flower stem sinks down again. The leaf stems
rise to the top of the water. There the leaves lie spread out, to
breathe the air.
Now when these leaves of water-plants are made to grow to the top
of the water and live, they are broad, and often shaped like a shield.
They are to spread out on the surface of the water, and catch all the
air and sunshine that they can.
But there are other kinds of water-plants which have their leaves
growing down under the water. All these leaves made to stay in the
water are fringe-like and narrow. They look like wide leaves cut into
many small strips.
Most sea-weeds have fringe-like leaves. Yet there are sea-weeds
with wide leaves. They, like the fish, are made to live in the water all
the time.
The fresh-water plants generally mean to come to the top of the
water some time. They have green leaves. Their leaves can keep
green only by the action on them of the air and light. This is why the
leaf is made fringe-like. Its fringed leaves act as a net, floating
around in the water. These leaf-nets catch not fish, but air-bubbles,
and rays of light.
The water crow-foot, or water buttercup, has two kinds of leaves.
Those at the bottom of the stalk are all in fine fringes. The leaves at
the top are broad, like other crow-foot leaves.
There are some water-plants which do not root at the bottom of the
pond. They spend all their lives floating about. A little plant called
“duck-weed” is one of them. It has a soft, green body like two halves
of a tiny pea. Its roots are three or four fine threads. It gathers all its
food from the water.
Most water-plants have two sets of roots. One set holds the plant
fast in its place. The other roots spring from the base of the leaves.
They gather food from the water.
Now, while leaves that grow in the water are fringe-like, I think you
will see that leaves of plants that grow in sand must be just the
opposite.
If you examine a plant growing in dry sand, you will find that it has
thick, soft, juicy leaves. The leaves of sand-plants are seldom flat.
They are shaped like fringes, or the palm of your hand, or like little
rolls.
Why is that? Can you not guess? The roots of these sand-living
plants can get very little water. Only when rain and heavy dew fall
can they get moisture. If they are wise little plants, they will store
moisture up.
These sand-plants store up food and moisture in their leaves. It may
surprise you that plants, growing in such dry places, have leaves so
full of juice. The leaves are their pantry. They are full of saved-up
water.
You will notice another thing. Many of the sand-plants have their
leaves covered with prickles, hooks, and thorns. The leaves are
rough, like burrs. Why is that? Is it not so, that birds and beasts will
not want to eat them?
If the leaves are nipped off by animals, these plants must die. Their
sand home gives them no water for their roots. If the leaves are
eaten, all the plant must perish.
As there is so little water in the sand to carry food to the plant
through the roots, the leaves of these plants must do most of their
eating. So in the sand-growing plants the leaves serve as mouth,
stomach, and pantry.
By the sea-side you will find plenty of sand-growing plants. You can
study them, and prove these points for yourselves.
Children who are not by the sea may, perhaps, have, near where
they live, a curious sand-loving plant, the cactus. The cactus prefers
a sandy soil. I have seen a large cactus, covered with yellow blooms,
growing right in a drift of clear sand.
You will notice that what you call the leaves of the cactus are not real
leaves, but thick, odd-shaped stems. These stems are green, and
answer for leaves. They are of many queer shapes. They are
covered with little clusters of prickles. As they serve for leaves, these
odd stems of a sand-plant are fleshy and juicy. The plant stores its
food and drink in them.
LESSON XII.
PLANTS THAT EAT ANIMALS.
QUEER DIET.
You have now heard of so many wonders about plants, that perhaps
nothing new which you will hear of them will surprise you. You may
not even say “Oh!” when I tell you that some plants eat bugs,—as
ants, gnats, and flies,—and will not even refuse a nice bit of raw
meat!
These plants are called the “flesh-eaters.” The name is a long one,—
carnivora. Here is a verse about them. As it has long, hard words in
it, I wish to say I did not make it.
“What’s this I hear

About the new carnivora?
Can little plants
Eat bugs and ants?
Why this is retrograding!
Surely the fare
Of flowers is air,
Or sunshine sweet.
They should not eat,
Or do aught so degrading.”
These animal-eating plants are so made that they catch insects, and
suck up, or draw out, the juice of their bodies. This juice the plant
seems to feed upon. It has been seen to pass from the leaf which
catches the insect into the stem and other parts of the plant.
In all these insect-eating plants, it is the leaf that does the killing and
eating.
I will first tell you of a little water-plant of this queer class. It is called
the bladder-plant. It is one of the water-plants which float free. On
the fringe-like leaves are little bags or bladders. These are full of air,
and help the plant to float. The mouth of these little bags has a door
opening inward. It is set round with hairs.
The little insect-larvæ which live in water, and other tiny animals that
swim about, see these little floating bags, with the small, green
doors. The creatures act as if they wanted to know what was inside
such pretty places. Finally they go in. To go in is easy. But once in,
they cannot get out. The little door will not open outwards.
After a day or two, the animal thus trapped is all eaten. Only the
hard, horny parts, which serve for its bones, are left.
There is another small plant, called the sun-dew, which eats insects.
Any of you who live near a cranberry bog can find sun-dew growing
on the edges of the bog. It is a plant that lives in wet places.
The sun-dew has a number of leaves about the size and shape of
pearl shirt-buttons. They grow on short stems close to the ground.
The leaves are covered with red hairs. These hairs are called
tentacles. As many as a hundred and fifty will grow on one little leaf.
From these long, red hairs come tiny drops of sticky stuff. These
drops gleam like dew. From them, and the little red, hairy rays, the
plant has its name.
The insect comes flying by. The “dew” looks like something good to
eat. But as soon as the insect touches the leaf, the juice holds its
legs fast. The insect begins to kick, but cannot get away.
The struggles of the insect seem to irritate the plant. For, when the
hairs are touched, they pour out more juice. Not only this, but the
touch of the insect on the hairs causes the leaf to bend upwards. It
bends over, over, folding down, until it is all shut up upon the insect.
Here is the insect held in the folded leaf. The glue runs out over it
faster than ever. When you think how the insect breathes through
tubes wound over all its body,[11] you will see that it must soon
smother, held in this sticky juice.
When the leaf is bent over the insect, the juice changes. When the
leaf is so bent, the juice is acid, or sour. This acid juice melts up the
body of the insect. As it melts, the mouths, or glands, of the leaf
seem to suck it up.
The sun-dew will melt up and devour bits of meat laid on the leaf.
Water-drops on the leaf will not make it bend. But when milk-drops
are put on the leaf, it bends, and sucks them up.
The leaf will not close over a piece of stone, or glass. But it will close
over a bit of boiled egg, or a scrap of bone. It melts the bone so soft,
that you can stick a needle into it.
Another animal-eating plant is the Venus’s-flytrap. It grows only in
North Carolina. The leaf-blade has sharp bristles about the upper
part. Each half of the leaf hollows a little, so that when the two halves
come together they form a small pouch.
The leaf has some fine hairs which an insect cannot but touch, when
it moves on the leaf. When the hairs are touched, the leaf bends.
The bristles on the edges lock together, so that the insect is held in a
cage, even before the leaf closes.
When the leaf is fully closed, the insect is held in a bag prison. The
glands then pour out juice to melt up the body of the insect. As it
melts, its juices are drawn into the plant.
The Venus’s-flytrap does not seem to depend alone on the chance
lighting of the insect upon it. It has a sweet juice on the leaf to attract
insects. But it does not need as much sticky fluid as the sun-dew, to
hold the insect. The two halves of the leaf snap together like a trap.
They give the insect no time to get away.
Another very odd plant which eats insects is the side-saddle plant.
This is often called the pitcher-plant. It looks far more like a pitcher
than like a saddle. The leaves of this plant are like a beautiful pitcher
painted red and green.
These plants are common in the South. They grow also in marshy
places in the North. I remember how happy I was when my father
brought me three of them, when I was a little girl.
There are two or three kinds of these pitcher-plants. One kind is
green, spotted with red, and has some yellow lines. Another kind is
green with purple marks. You must notice that the inner side of the
lid is of the brightest color.
Why is this? Insects see the gay color and fly to the plant. The
leaves of the pitcher-plant are large, and they are bent and the
edges grow together nearly all the way up. This forms a close pitcher
which will hold water.
The seam where the leaves are joined is usually of a light yellow
color. It is covered with a honey-like juice, in small drops. The rim of
the pitcher and the inside of the neck have also these honey drops.
The insects, attracted by the gay color, come to feed on the honey.
They feed along the seam and rim, and so into the throat of the
pitcher. They seem to get dizzy, or so full of honey, that they feel dull.
They get down into the pitcher, and—there they stay!
Why do they not come out? For three reasons. The inside of the
pitcher has a band of hairs growing downward. The insects cannot
creep up through these. The hairs turn them back, as a brush fence
turns cattle.
Then, too, part of the inside of the pitcher is so smooth that insects
fall back when they walk on it. Still, as they can walk on glass, I think
their slipping back must be due more to being dizzy, than to the
smooth surface.
And here is the third reason, the pitcher is half full of liquid, and this
liquid seems to make the insect dizzy. This liquid looks like pure,
clear water. It tastes like the root of the plant,—a biting taste.
It is not like the honey-dew which lies on the seam for a bait. In this
liquid, inside, the insects are drowned.
You may find many dead insects in one pitcher. I told you a little
about this, in the last book, in the lessons on flies.[12] The dead
bodies of the insects melted up seem to help to feed the plant. But
often a pitcher catches more insects than the plant can use.
There are many kinds of pitcher-plants in very warm lands. You may
be able to see some of them in hot-houses. All have the same
general way of killing and eating insects.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] See Nature Reader, No. 2, p. 77.
[12] Nature Reader, No. 2, pp. 59-60.
LESSON XIII.
WEATHER PROPHET PLANTS.
Once, when I was a little girl, I ran one morning to the garden, and
said to the old Scotchman who worked there, “To-day I am going up
the mountain for berries.”
“No, no, Missey, not to-day,” he said; “it will rain.” “No, it will not rain,”
I said. “The sun is up. The cook says it will be fair. The glass in the
hall does not say rain.”
“Tuts, tuts,” said the old man. “I care for no suns, or cooks, or
glasses. The pimpernel says it will rain, and so it will rain. Flowers,
Missey, always tell the truth. When they say ‘rain,’ go, get your
umbrella.”
Sure enough, by noon, the rain was pouring down. After that, I
looked with great respect at the tiny flower, sometimes brick red,
sometimes blue, which could tell about the weather.
But the pimpernel is not the only plant that is a weather prophet. We
will look first at some plants, and then at some seeds, which tell
about the weather.
If you go into the garden, and find the African marigold shut, after
seven o’clock in the morning, you may be pretty sure that there will
be a rainy day.
But while the African marigold stays shut for rain, the Siberian thistle
gets ready for rain, by keeping open. If this thistle does not close at
night, you may look out for rain next day.
You see the marigold, which had origin in a hot land, stays folded, to
keep the rain out of its petals. But the thistle, which had origin in a
cold, stormy land, keeps wide open to get a good washing.
Did you ever see near the way-
side the pretty little morning-glory
or bind-weed, with its pink and
white blossoms? Even if it is wide
open, in the early day, it twists its
striped cup close together, and
droops its head, if a rain cloud
drifts across the sky. It seems to
want to shield its stamens and
pistil from the wet.
There is a little single marigold,
which shuts up in a hurry if the sky
becomes clouded. It is called the
“rainy-marigold.”
Most plants which we call “weather
prophets” shut up for rain. But
some plants open for rain. The
cause of the opening and closing
is probably the difference in light.
Most likely, these plants shut their
A RAINY DAY. flowers because there is too little
light, not because there is too
much moisture.
But you know there are some plants which shrink from a strong light,
and love the shade. You will find that most shade-loving plants, as
the verbenas, do not close for rain.
Lilies, tulips, and other flowers that love the sun, shut for rain. The
tulip and crocus families are among our best weather prophets. Just
as the gay tulip shuts at evening, when the dew begins to fall, so it
shuts for a shower.
Tulips are careful not to open their cups very wide in the morning, if it
is likely to rain. The roses make no change; they seem not to fear
wet.
On the whole, you may be pretty sure, if you go into your garden,
and find many flowers, as tulips, marigolds, morning-glories, and
celandine, shut, it will be a stormy day, unfit for picnics or long walks.
Just as some blossoms are weather prophets, so are some seeds.
But in the case of the seeds it is the moisture, not the light, which
affects them.
Among these seeds, that of the wild-oat is chief. When the air is
moist, the long bristles, called awns, on the seed, squirm and twist.
In old times, before people knew why this was, they said that this
seed was a witch!
There is a marigold which grows at the Cape of Good Hope, and in
dry weather has its head of seeds held close, like a round button.
When rain is coming, this seed-head opens out, like a star with many
points.
Do you see the use of these motions? The wild-oat, as it wriggles
and twists back and forth, from the dampness of the air, or earth,
twists its way into the soil. It plants itself by these motions.
The marigold keeps its seeds safe in dry weather, which would kill
them. When rain comes, it opens the seed-head. Then the seeds fall
out on moist earth, where they will sprout and grow.
Some seed-pods fly open when they are dry. The sand-box tree has
seed-pods as large as an orange. They fly open in dry weather.
What is the reason of all these queer actions of the flowers? No
doubt they are all due to light and moisture. To light, most of all.
The little pimpernel probably needs much heat and light to open its
petals. Even a little moisture in the air, or a little less light than it
likes, will cause it to keep shut.
A pimpernel in full bloom will close its blossoms almost as soon as
you pick it. Very likely the slight moisture of your hand causes it to do
that.
This motion of closing, during rain, may be very useful to some
flowers. A frail flower with a large cup, such as a tulip or crocus,
might, if open, be broken to pieces by a heavy shower. These
flowers fold up, and expose only a close-pointed bud, to the storm.
Then no rain can get among the petals.
Also, the rain might break the large pollen cases of the tulip, and
wash the pollen all away. So, if the convolvulus had its long tube
filled with water, the stamens and pistil would perhaps be harmed,
and its seeds would not be able to grow.
LESSON XIV.
PLANT CLOCKS.
I knew an old man who made a great clock for his grandchildren.
What kind of a clock do you suppose it was? The clock was in the
garden, and it was made of flowers.
Did it tell the time well? Only pretty well. Flower clocks are as liable
to get out of order as clocks made at a factory.
This clock was a great flower bed, divided into twelve parts. The
divisions were marked out by little rows of box-plants. In the middle
was a post three feet high. It had two clock hands on it, but they
were only for show. They did not move.
But the post had a sun-dial on it, and that gave true time. So the
children could tell when the flower clock was not working well.
As there are twelve hours of day and twelve of night, and some
plants open only at night, each of the twelve divisions of the clock
was divided into two parts by a little line of red colors. On one side of
this were the night bloomers, on the other side the day bloomers.
The children thought it lovely, and were proud of it. And the clock did
for them what the grandfather wished,—it made them like and notice
plants.
I have just said that there are plants which open only by night, and
others which open only by day. This opening and shutting for day
and night is called “the sleep of plants.”
This sleep of plants is not because the plant is tired; it is due to the
absence or presence of light, and to changes in the amount of light.
Yet, no doubt, in it the organs of the plant do rest, as their growth
and action are not then so rapid.
Both the flowers and the leaves of plants have this sleep motion. We
will look first at the sleep of flowers.
You have noticed that the morning-glories are open when you rise,
and that they fold or shut up by noon. Have you in your garden a
flower with gay yellow or scarlet blossoms, called the four-o’clock?
That does not open until about four in the afternoon.
As you run to school in the morning, the dandelions are gay along
the way-side. When you come from school in the afternoon, the
dandelions are all folded in their green cups.
If this is so, why does not the flower-clock tell true time? You can see
that owing to the changes in the heat and rising of the sun in
different places, and seasons, the sleep of the flowers would not
begin at the same time.
I have seen my morning-glories open as late as nine o’clock, and
stay open all day in cool October days. In August they opened by six
and were shut by eleven. So the four-o’clocks and dandelions may
vary by an hour or two.
All the water-lilies shut at night. Some not only shut, but draw their
heads down under water. I will tell you when you will find some
flowers opening. At four in the morning you will find the goat’s-beard
and the blue chicory opening. The chicory petals are then a fine
blue. They become lighter in color until near mid-day, when they are
almost white. Chicory is called “Miss-go-to-bed-at-noon” by some
children, as the flowers shut at noon.
At five in the morning the common morning-glory and the poppy
open. At six the yellow hawk’s-weed and dandelions look out on the
way-side. At seven the water-lilies smile at us. At eight, if the day is
fine, the pimpernel opens its red eyes.
At nine the marigold spreads out, and the tulip. At noon, on a hot
day, you will find the tulip opened nearly flat. At eleven the Star of
Bethlehem shuts up, while most of the day flowers are in their best
bloom.
At twelve the lazy passion-flowers awake, and the sweet-peas have
their banners opened wide. At two the wild daisies are brightest.
Then at four in the afternoon, out comes the four-o’clocks, and at five
the “beauty of the night,” and at six the delicate evening primrose. At
seven the white lychnis, which blooms only at night, opens. Later still
the night primrose puts out its white bloom, and at two o’clock in the
morning the purple convolvulus wakes up and wonders why the sun
is so late.
Now, in sleeping, most of the flowers close tight together. Besides
the rest to the growing organs, which sleep brings them, this folding
up keeps moisture from the pollen. Also, the flowers, whose partners
are day-flying insects, keep out of the way of night insects by closing
their pretty doors.
The evening primroses, night lychnis, and others, which have night-
flying insect partners, keep shut when day insects are about. You will
notice that most of these night plants have yellow or white petals,
and a sweet perfume.
I have told you the leaves sleep also. Leaves sometimes sleep by
closing the two halves of the leaf together by the mid-vein. Other
leaves sleep by dropping the leaves down against the stem.
A young Swiss girl was one of the first to observe this sleep motion
of leaves. She saw it first in the clover. When the leaves sleep in this
way, you might think them faded and dying.
You will do well to watch this sleep of leaves. If you go into a garden,
or field, or on the road-side, you will see that the leaves look very
different after sunset from what they did in the noon-day.
The yellow sorrel and the clover are plants in which you can watch
leaf-sleep well. You will find the small leaflets hanging down against
the stalk. So if you look at the beans in the garden, you will see their
leaves falling back, and perhaps a little bent over. One kind of oxalis,
with very small, compound leaves, lifts its leaves up all in a bunch to
go to sleep.
The leaves of trees have sleep-change. The mimosa and the
barberry close their leaves at night.
Are these sleep motions of any use to plants? Yes. It has been found
that this folding up, and falling back of leaves, will help them to resist
cold and wet.
If, during a cold night, you pin the leaves out, so they cannot take the
sleep position, they are likely to freeze. Also this change in the
leaves, at night, helps to shield the plant from too much dew.
Sometimes, also, it is of use as it turns toward the dew the under
side of the leaf. This under side has the most mouths for drinking
water. Thus the flower has a good drink at night, after the dry, hot
day.
Among the other motions of plants, I might speak of that of some
leaves, which curl or shrink if you touch them. But I have not space
for that now.
Perhaps you think that these lessons have told you a great many
things about flowers. If you go on with the study of plants, you will
see how much there is to tell, and how very little has here been told.
These lessons are only meant to stir up your interest in plants, and
show you what wonders are in the plant world. After that, you will be
sure to learn more for yourselves.
LESSON XV.
THE SCHOOL CABINET.
One of the wise teachers who are all the time thinking what will help
and interest children wrote me a letter. In it, he said, “If you wish to
do our school children a real service, write something about cabinets
in our schools. In each school-house there should be a collection of
natural history objects, brought together by teachers and children.
This would be of great use, and the children would take pleasure in
collecting specimens.”
So, right here, in the middle of this Third Book, I want to say a word
about cabinets of natural curiosities.
In the Second Book I told you here and there how you might catch
and keep a specimen. I told you how to dry beetles, star-fish, and a
few other little animals.
If you make a collection of this kind, you can look at the object when
you read of it in the book. That will help you to understand it and will
interest you.
In a cabinet you could keep safely for use many nice things, which
might otherwise be wasted. Also, you might spend some of your
pennies in buying specimens. I think pennies are much better spent
so than for candy and cake.
If you are collecting a cabinet of curiosities, I think you might write
letters to other schools, or far off friends to ask them to send you
specimens.
You might offer to trade objects, of which you have several, for
something which other people have, and you have not.
I think, too, you would be very happy out of doors, looking for
specimens. And I believe you and your teachers would be greater
friends than ever, if you were all helping each other to get a cabinet
together.
If, at first, you cannot have a cabinet case with glass doors, have
some shelves. Have some boxes to set on the shelves, and lay
pieces of glass over the boxes for covers. Those little paper boxes
—, which jewellers and druggists use, are very nice for small objects,
—as seeds, little shells, and so on. Nearly all children have some of
these boxes.
When you have specimens in these little boxes, the teacher will write
the name of the object on the box.
I knew a boy, who made a very nice collection of many kinds of
wood. He cut the wood into wedges, with a bit of the bark left on.
One side of the wedge he polished with glass and sand paper. One
side he left rough. He wrote on each piece of wood the name of the
tree from which it came.
I once saw some lovely pictures of leaves. They were made by a
little girl. How did she make them? Could she paint? No.
She had some small sheets of stiff paper. She got some printer’s ink
in a cup. She made two little balls of woollen cloth. She would take a
nice, fresh, perfect leaf, and with one ball she would put a little ink,
very gently, over all the under surface of the leaf. Then the next thing
was to lay the leaf, inked side down, on a sheet of stiff paper, and
pat it gently all over with the other woollen ball.
When she lifted up the leaf she had a picture of its shape, and of all
its veins and edges. It looked like a nice engraving. She put the
same kinds of leaves on the same sheet,—as the leaves of the rose
family on one, the leaves of maples on another, and so on. Under
each leaf she wrote its name.
Such a collection of leaf-patterns is fine in a cabinet. So is a
collection of dried flowers,—called an herbarium. Your mother or
teacher could show you how to make one.
You will find on the way-side, or in field and garden, some of those
wonderful nests, built by spiders, wasps and bees, of which you read
in the First Book of Nature Readers. And at the sea-side, you can
find crabs, shells, and bits of coral, sponge and sea-weed.
Did you ever think what a pretty sight a row of pieces of many kinds
of stone makes? Have you thought that stones are just hard, homely,
brown things?
Have you noticed that marble is sometimes snow white, sometimes
black, or veined with many colors? The granite is gray; sandstone is
red, or gray, or purplish. Slate is black, purple, or veined in many
shades. Other stones are black, red, yellow, brown, green, in fact of
nearly all hues.
Each kind of stone has its own name. Some come from one place
only, some from another. There is a reason why each kind has its
color and grain. As you grow older, you may like to study about rocks
and stones. Then how nice it will be to have on hand a collection of
specimens.
A collection of birds’ nests is very fine. As we study in this book a
little about birds, you will see how many kinds of nests there are. If
you have a cabinet you can put into it one nest of each kind that you
can find. Put into each nest one egg of the kind that belongs to the
nest. Then put into the nest a little card, with the name of the bird,
and the number of eggs commonly laid in each nest.
Be sure you do not break up the nest of a sitting bird. That is cruel.
To keep the eggs you must blow them. Make a hole with a large pin
in each end of the egg. Then blow hard, steadily in the pin-hole in
the large end. All the inside of the egg will fly out at the hole at the
other end.
Our next lesson will be about grasshoppers and their cousins. As the
bodies of grasshoppers shrink when they dry, it is well to stuff them.
How can you do that?
Put a little cotton wool on the end of a short thread, threaded in a
long, coarse needle. The grasshopper should have been dead an
hour or two, before you try to stuff it. Take it by the head and pass
the needle through from the back end of the body, and bring it out
under the breast. If you draw it gently, the cotton will go in with the
thread.
Several pieces of cotton drawn in, in this way, will fill the body
enough to hold it in shape. If the cotton is wet in alcohol, or camphor,
it is better.
Worms, spiders, toads, minnows, and such soft-bodied things, must
be kept in clear glass bottles, filled with alcohol.
Now the chief thing in a collection is to have it good of its kind. The
specimens should be as perfect as possible, and be kept neat and
clean. Especially they should be set in good order. They should all
have labels, with their names on them.
A collection well marked will be worth much more than one without
the names placed on the specimens. A collection all jumbled
together, without order, will be of little use.
If you set a bird’s nest here, a wasp’s nest there, a bright stone next,
and then a beetle, or a card of butterflies, your cabinet will have
small teaching value. Remember a cabinet is not merely made to
“look pretty” like a doll’s house, or a shop window.
Place things of a kind together. Then put kinds which are nearest like
next each other. Put your insects together, and arrange them by their
orders. Put the beetles together, the butterflies together, the wasps,
and bees, and so on. Spiders come in as one order of the insects.
Your crabs and shrimps must stand together, but be placed next the
insects, as they are of the jointed class of creatures.
Put your birds’ nests, and eggs, and any stuffed birds, or pictures of
birds that you may have, together. And so on, with all the other
things.
Your cabinet may be a small one, but if it is neatly arranged, and all
the specimens are good of their kind, rightly named, and kept clean,
it will be of real value.
Do not be in such a hurry to collect, that you put in rubbish, instead
of good specimens. A butterfly with broken wings, a beetle without a

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The Political Economy of Sanctions:

Resilience and Transformation in

ISSN 2662-2483 ISSN 2662-2491 (electronic)

Cover illustration: © Rob Friedman/iStockphoto.com

Part I Theoretical Identification of the Mechanisms of

3.3 Conclusion to Part I: Completing Theoretical Merger 67

Part II Institutional Design

Part III Material Capabilities

Part IV Cultural Leadership

9 Iran (Cultural Leadership) 309

Part V Welfare State Regime Reproduction

Fig. 3.1 Self-protection of society (Source Author’s diagram) 67

Fig. 6.2 The structure of a household income (Sources GKS

Table 2.1 Welfare state regime—theoretical development 44

The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long,

The use of sanctions in international political economy has increased

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

cooperation with the UK Government announced a new round of sanc-

– What are the mechanisms by which sanctions operate?

In pursuit of these research questions, this book focuses primarily on

confront the Lockean ‘heartland’, Russia and Iran increasingly inter-

1 Neoliberalism is ‘an economic policy regime whose objective is to secure monetary

1.1 Welfare State Theories and IPE

1.2 The Political Economy of Sanctions

sanctions being the same operational variables as the counter-hegemonic

of state and class formation that lie in the labour/capital contradictions

1.3 The Political Economy of Russia and Iran

market has negatively impacted economic growth by contributing to the

2 Author’s interview with the chairman of the Board of RBCC.

1.4 Book Outline

of the socio-economic base (material) and by transforming the modali-

arrangements: (a) people’s perception of their dependence on markets

Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza. 2013. “Effects of International Financial and

Karshenas, Massoud, and Hassan Hakimian. 2005. “Oil, Economic Diversi-

Rieger, Elmar, and Stephan Leibfried. 2003. Limits to Globalization: Welfare

Theoretical Identification of the Mechanisms

1 The contender state’s self-protection constitutes the core of counter-hegemony

Keywords Welfare state regime, Counter-hegemony

transformation in tastes and expanding needs of the working class as the

built’ (Marshall 1950). Another positive result of this objectification is the

integral to the concept of welfare state regime. Overall, the visualisation

Alternative Welfare State Theories or How to

suggested that the ‘only satisfactory resolution to this dilemma’ is encap-

contradictions’, hidden in the planning failures in the fiscal and in

their intervention is to integrate these three categories, and their interna-

structuralist accounts, from Wood and Gough’s Institutional responsi-

The Welfare State Regime as a Theoretical

2.1 First Theoretical Adaptation:

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 33

tools of de-commodification (Esping-Andersen 1990), but also with the

marginal propensity of the stigmatised population to refer to welfare aid

2.1.1 Regime Approach

“What’s this I hear

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