Negotiating public service bargains in postrevolutionary times: The case of Iran's diplomatic corps

Abstract

New political regimes stemming from revolutions eventually find themselves confronted with the imperative to build upper bureaucratic apparatuses geared towards facilitating regime stability. This article examines the process of "re-bureaucratization" in the Islamic Republic of Iran, whereby institutions are designed and reworked over time to accommodate distinct features of the reshuffled bureaucratic elite initially incongruous in a deregulated revolutionary environment. Precisely, it examines state institutions established to recruit and train postrevolutionary Iranian diplomats following the purges of state bureaucracies. Relying on qualitative and quantitative data, the article shows how such institutions allowed to outstrip loyalty-driven politico-administrative arrangements that are essentially short-sighted, as once their aim fulfilled-asserting regime elites' control over the state-, they channel policy-making deficiency.Conversely, their very designs craft a "Public Service Bargain" that concomitantly fosters diplomats' loyalty, expertise, and representativeness-which, for to the revolutionary canon, commingles diplomats' plebeianization and provincialization-into stabilized institutional arrangements.