Do social forces in Iran have any meaningful influence over the state or does the state use a top-down power approach in its interaction with the society (Harris, 2017). Taking refugee policy as a case this paper engages this debate. Since the early 1980s Iran has been host to one of the largest Afghan refugee population (UNHCR statistics, several years). Over this long period the approach of the Islamic Republic has shifted from an open door policy of integration to a focus on restriction and repatriation. What explains this shift? Multiple domestic and regional/international factors have influenced Iran’s refugee policy. The purpose of this paper is to see whether societal forces have been able to influence the state’s refugee policy, and if yes, how and to what degree? Is the Iranian state a unified entity, or is it plagued by institutional rivalries and inter-elite competition? If the latter, does such fragmentations, for example the rivalry between the Revolutionary Guards and Rouhani’s government over refugee policies, expand or contract the space of influence of societal forces? But what are the relevant societal forces when it comes to the problematic of refugees. How fragmented is the society in its approach to Afghan refugees, and what are the consequences of such fragmentation for state-society relations? Has the existence of multiple and contradictory societal positions/voices helped the state to be more autonomous in choosing its path, or have such multiple voices, in conjunction with intra-elite and institutional competition, made the state more dependent on societal forces? By focusing on refugee policy as a case in studying state-society relations this paper makes several contributions. Firstly, it redresses, partially, the inadequacy of the literature on Iran’s refugee policies and their determinants, domestic as well as regional/global. Studies of domestic factors (with a few exceptions such as descriptive accounts by Rajaee 2002 and Adelkhak 2007) are scant, while those about regional/international elements are almost non-existent. Secondly, it contributes to the literature on state-society relations in hybrid or authoritarian political systems. And lastly, by looking at the specific case of refugee policy of Iran this paper engages the general literature of refugee policies.