Beijing Consensus vs. Washington Consensus: A Comparative Analysis for Iran

Adopting an appropriate approach to development has been a matter of debate in developing countries including iran. within these debates, a lot of attention is paid to the chinese model of development or what is generally known as the beijing consensus. these debates center on the applicability of the beijing consensus to iran’s development. here in this research we tend to answer the following questions: what are the similarities and differences between beijing and washington consensus? and, to what degrees the beijing model of development can be pursued by countries like iran? according to our hypothesis, it turns out that the two schools are similar in being export-orientated, their insistence on free trade and politico-economic development models. they, however, differ on what the beijing school sees necessary in state centrism, authoritarian development, combination of political and economic geography and the technology-based economy; these are ignored in the washington consensus. both schools have elements that can be learned from in the course of iran’s development. this is while the determinant factor in iran’s development is not pursing a particular model but rather achievement of a national consensus. this national consensus may be reached after a close look at the two existing models. the theoretical framework that informs this study is the state-centric political economy theory of robert gilpin, using a causal-comparative method.