ABSTRACT
This and subsequent chapters will explore an alternative hypothesis to the one pursued in Chapter 4, one which suggests that relations between Moscow and Tehran may have been sensitive to ongoing micro-analytic changes in the domestic political affairs of each nation. Specifically, Chapters 5 and 6 will take steps to clearly articulate how changing factional balances of power in Russia and Iran may have operated both to enhance political affinity throughout the 1990s and to dampen it in more recent years. In succession, these chapters examine how institutional conditions (and associated reforms) in both nations functioned to privilege specific sets of political interests which, in turn, subsequently caused Russian and Iranian leaders to alter their overall cost-benefit calculations regarding partnership and cooperation. Arguments raised in Chapters 5 and 6 are expressed in a set of formal hypotheses to be found at the conclusion of each chapter.
