The present study focuses on analyzing the configuration of Iran's political economy during the 1980s and elucidating the redistributive model characteristic of this period. The central problem and research question of the article concern how, within the context of revolutionary transition, the eight-year war, and structural dependence on oil revenues, the model of a "redistributive political economy" took shape in Iran's economy and state. The theoretical framework of the research is based on approaches of the "command economy" and the "rentier state," demonstrating that the combination of wartime exigencies, post-revolutionary social pressures, and rentier logic propelled the state toward strengthening its role in the market, nationalizing industries, fixing prices, and deepening protectionist policies.

The research method employed is historical-explanatory analysis, relying on archival evidence, official data, and secondary studies. The findings reveal that the redistributive policies of the 1980s, while contributing in the short term to the organization of public livelihood and the maintenance of social cohesion, led in the long term to the expansion of bureaucracy, the reinforcement of rent-seeking, a decline in productive efficiency, the formation of a parallel economy, and a crisis of capital accumulation. Furthermore, although the state's redistributive model, in conjunction with the rentier economy and command logic, gave rise to a form of economic populism, the relative realization of distributive justice resulted in the populace's dependence on state distribution of wealth, thereby reproducing structural dependency and institutional inefficiency within the political economy of the Islamic Republic.