IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/syrn7_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From Zero to Soldier: What if Entrepreneurial Success Comes at the Cost of Democracy?

Author

Listed:
  • Feizi, Farhad

Abstract

Are democracy and entrepreneurship inextricably linked? This recurring question has received contradictory responses, but the literature still lacks in-depth analyses and theorizations on it. The present work examines an extreme case of the coexistence between entrepreneurship and authoritarianism and adopts two profound theories in development studies to explain the mechanism and origin of this symbiosis and justify why such an inextricable link does not exist, at least universally. Studying the success pathway of Iran’s triumphed startups (i.e., unicorns) with the theoretical lens of durable inequality and limited and open access orders, this work has revealed that Iran’s unicorns have navigated two checkpoints, namely connection and collaboration, with the extant political system. Accordingly, the success pathway beneath Iran’s entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) is identified as an inequality-producing process, called opportunity hoarding, for its cause and as its ultimate effect, the country’s social arrangement, the basic limited access order, is proposed.

Suggested Citation

  • Feizi, Farhad, 2025. "From Zero to Soldier: What if Entrepreneurial Success Comes at the Cost of Democracy?," SocArXiv syrn7_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:syrn7_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/syrn7_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/68a0c65489882e1039abd89b/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/syrn7_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mehrdad Vahabi & Mohajer Nasser, 2011. "Islamic republic of Iran and Its Opposition," Post-Print hal-00629139, HAL.
    2. Seawright, Jason, 2002. "Testing for Necessary and/or Sufficient Causation: Which Cases Are Relevant?," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 178-193, April.
    3. Luca Farè & David B. Audretsch & Marcus Dejardin, 2023. "Does democracy foster entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1461-1495, December.
    4. Marcus T. Wolfe & Pankaj C. Patel, 2023. "Does democracy make it easy? the influence of a sudden onset of democracy and entrepreneurship," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(9), pages 1012-1027, February.
    5. Jia, Ruixue & Lan, Xiaohuan & Padró i Miquel, Gerard, 2021. "Doing business in China: Parental background and government intervention determine who owns busines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    6. Keim, Jan & Müller, Susan & Dey, Pascal, 2024. "Whatever the problem, entrepreneurship is the solution! Confronting the panacea myth of entrepreneurship with structural injustice," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    7. Steven A. Brieger & Diana M. Hechavarría & Arielle Newman, 2024. "Entrepreneurship and Democracy: A Complex Relationship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 48(5), pages 1285-1307, September.
    8. Ruixue Jia & Xiaohuan Lan & Gerard Padró I Miquel, 2021. "Doing Business in China: Parental Background and Government Intervention Determine Who Owns Businesses," NBER Working Papers 28547, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chuantao Cui & Leona Shao-Zhi Li, 2024. "More but not better: Career incentives of local leaders and entrepreneurial entry in China," Working Papers 202417, University of Macau, Faculty of Business Administration.
    2. Cui, Chuantao & Li, Leona Shao-Zhi, 2023. "Trade policy uncertainty and new firm entry: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    3. Ding, Haoyuan & Dong, Wenjuan & Qin, Cong, 2025. "Does migrant working experience stimulate returnees’ entrepreneurship: Evidence from rural China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    4. Can Xu & Andreas Steiner, 2022. "Does Public Employment Affect Household Saving Rates? Evidence from Chinese Household Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 9741, CESifo.
    5. Liwen Chen & Bobby Chung & Guanghua Wang, 2021. "Exposure to Socially Influential Peer Parents: Evidence from Cadre Parents in China," Working Papers 2021-052, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    6. Peter Buckley, 2025. "The Democratic Deficit of the Global Dominance of Producer-Driven Society," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 3-19, February.
    7. Chen, Liwen & Chung, Bobby W. & Wang, Guanghua, 2023. "Exposure to socially influential peer parents: Evidence from cadre parents in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Chen, Shuai & Ge, Erqi, 2022. "The Anti-Corruption Campaign and the Inter-Generational Transmission of Working in Bureaucracy: Evidence from China," IZA Discussion Papers 15569, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Li, Zhaohua & Pang, Suqin & Zhu, Zhiyun, 2024. "The impact of pilot free trade zones on entrepreneurship: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    10. Guo, Liwen & Cheng, Zhiming & Tani, Massimiliano & Cook, Sarah & Zhao, Jiaqi & Chen, Xi, 2025. "Air pollution and entrepreneurship," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Hayward, Mathew & Cheng, Zhiming & Zhe Wang, Ben, 2022. "Disrupted education, underdogs and the propensity for entrepreneurship: Evidence from China’s sent-down youth program," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 33-39.
    12. Zhao, Yujie & Zhang, Zixuan & Zhang, Boyuan & Sun, Haixia, 2024. "Does administrative monopoly regulation affect cross-regional resource allocation?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    13. Chen, Shuai & Ge, Erqi, 2024. "The Anti-Corruption Campaign and the Inter-Generational Transmission of Working in Bureaucracy: Evidence from China," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1159 [rev.], Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Deng, Weiguang & Li, Xue & Zhang, Junsen, 2023. "Marriage, gender, and premiums from cadre parents," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    15. Chen, Shuai & Ge, Erqi, 2022. "The Anti-Corruption Campaign and the Inter-Generational Transmission of Working in Bureaucracy: Evidence from China," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1159, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. Sitong Pan & Qinghua Shi & Yue Zhang, 2025. "Platform economy and missing entrepreneurship: Evidence from E‐commerce development policy in China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(2), pages 209-251, April.
    17. Lili Huang & Qingyi Gao & Jiachen Fan & Jingwen Zhu & Zhenmu Hong, 2024. "Export stability and adolescent fertility rate," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 1675-1706, April.
    18. Therese E. Zogo & Christophe M. Mbassi & Simplice A. Asongu, 2024. "Coup d’état and access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 24/019, African Governance and Development Institute..
    19. Derek Beach & Rasmus Brun Pedersen, 2018. "Selecting Appropriate Cases When Tracing Causal Mechanisms," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 47(4), pages 837-871, November.
    20. Steven A. Brieger & Diana M. Hechavarría & Arielle Newman, 2024. "Entrepreneurship and Democracy: A Complex Relationship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 48(5), pages 1285-1307, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:syrn7_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.