Ma`rifat Eqtesadi

This article aims to present a native analytical framework for evaluating public budgeting in Iran by addressing two primary objectives: first, formulating an ideal budgeting framework grounded in the theoretical and practical foundations of the School of the Imams of the Revolution (Imam Khomeini, may his soul rest in peace, and Ayatollah Khamenei, may God protect him); and second, conducting a pathological analysis of the gap between this normative framework and the prevailing practices governing the political economy of budgeting in Iran. Employing qualitative content analysis of foundational texts and primary documents, this study argues that, within the School of the Imams, budgeting transcends its technical-economic function and is conceived as a strategic-value document instrumental in realizing transcendent objectives such as justice-oriented development, self-reliance, and poverty eradication. In contrast, the pathological analysis reveals that Iran’s contemporary political economy of budgeting remains hindered from fully realizing this ideal framework due to structural impediments—including the dominance of rentier economic structures, the prioritization of short-term and day-to-day operational logics over strategic imperatives, and sectoral interest conflicts. The findings indicate that this persistent gap is not attributable to deficiencies in the normative foundations themselves, but rather emerges from a fundamental misalignment between the aspirational principles of the policymaking system and the actual functional dynamics of the socio-economic-political structure. Ultimately, this paper proposes the derived framework as a precise evaluative standard for critiquing and reforming future budgetary processes in Iran.