This article contains a brief description and analysis of the theories of arbitrary rule and the short-term society, which the author has developed since fifty-six years ago. The full account of these theories can be found in the following books: The Persians, Ancient, Medieval and Modern Iran; Iranian History and Politics, The Dialectic of State and Society; State and Society in Iran, the Eclipse of the Qajar and the Emergence of the Pahlavis; The Short-Term Society; Nine Essays in the Historical Sociology of Iran, Oil and Economic Development; Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran; The Political Economy of Modern Iran, Despotism and Pseudo-Modernism.
Iranian History and Politics: The Dialectic of State and Society, London and New York: Routledge, paperback edition, 2007; original edition, 2003.
Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, London and New York: I. B. Tauris, second, paperback, edition, 1999; first edition, 1990.
The Political Economy of Modern Iran (cloth and paper), London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981.
State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis, tr. Hasan Afshar, Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz; 7th impression, 2014 (first edition, 2001).
The Persians: ancient, medieval and modern Iran, London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
IRAN, Politics, History and Literature, London and New York: Routledge, 2013.
