The classic theories of democratic representation argue that democratic accountability results from politicians’ success in delivering collective goods such as economic growth, jobs, monetary stability, or overall distributive outcomes and social benefit systems. The findings of this paper on the democratic accountability in Iranian provincial politics challenge this classic view. The interviews with some members of Iranian Parliament, local officials, and local activists show that clientelistic accountability is dominant in the relationship between citizens and the members of Parliament in provincial Iran. The primary mechanism of this clientelistic linkage is the politicized disbursement of private goods such as jobs, low interest rate loan, permit for industrial activities and other tangible goods to the electorate through the local bureaucracy. The secondary way of maintaining this linkage is through the allocation of club goods that provide benefit for the local constituencies and impose costs on the national level such as hard infrastructures. The preliminary result of this analysis indicates that the members of Majles who have been in the office in several terms utilize this secondary method to gain electoral support. The long period of incumbency of these members of Parliament helps them to establish a connection with central bureaucracy which plays a significant role in allocating such goods through the programmatic policymaking. In sum, a coalition between the executive administration particularly the local bureaucracy and the members of Parliament has forged the clientelism in provincial Iran. This fact primarily stems from the process of state building in Iran which was based on the hyper concentration of resources and decision making institutions in Tehran. Thus, by holding relatively free elections after 1979 revolution, the members of Majles in provincial areas serve as a link between the central bureaucracy and resources in the one hand and the local bureaucracy and constituencies on the other hand. The interviews show that clientelism has been exacerbated by the formation of revolutionary welfare organizations which created informal networks influencing the clientelistic behavior in Iranian local politics. Therefore, the process of state formation after revolution also intensified clientelism in Iran. It appears that modernization theory and state- and class-centered perspective have difficulty in explaining the clientelism in Iran. Instead, the theories highlighting the critical role of state formation in interaction with the pattern of social mobilization can provide a better explanation for the presence of clientelism in provincial Iran.