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The divide between the state and society is one of the main issues as reflected in literature pertaining to the sociological approach. In the analysis of the state’s role in industrial evolution, emphasis has been placed upon the fact that the nature of relationships between the state and society determines the state’s role in this process, meaning that their participation’s qualities and the nature of state’s autonomy from and its reliance on society plays a major role in the process of industrial evolution.
The objective of this article is to identify these relationships by analyzing institution of the state, its internal structure, and the nature of its relationships with social groups. The Weberian bureaucracy concept and its particular indicators are seen as representations of internal construction of the state and social groups, and the entrepreneur sector is viewed as representation of social structure. Theories of social control (Migdal, 1988) and the rentier state (Beblawi and Luciani, 1987) have been in our attention for explaining the industrial and social evolutions. The state’s autonomy from society, its freedom from particularistic pressures of some social groups, and its established connection with social structure, and pursuance of national interests in concepts such as “embedded autonomy”, as stated in Peter Evans, Berkeley University’s professor, are assessed in this paper. Moreover, “joint projects”, as the basis for reciprocity and interaction between social groups and the state, have been placed in analysis framework. Finally, considering all opportunities provided through the mentioned theory for analyzing the relationship between the state and society, an attempt is made here to point out its limitations in studying the relationship between the rentier state and entrepreneur groups in Iran