I am the UC Foundation Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Service at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and concurrently, a non-resident Senior Fellow on Middle East Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA). I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from Tehran University in 2008, and I have since worked with many prestigious American universities and thinktanks. After I moved to the United States in 2010, I held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. From 2011 to 2013, I was a Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Between 2014 to 2017, I taught and conducted research at Northwestern University in Chicago. I joined to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2017. My research focuses on international and comparative politics of authoritarian regimes with an emphasis on the Middle East and North Africa. My first book, Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-revolutionary Iran (Columbia University Press, 2015), was awarded the Washington Institute silver medal prize. My second book, “Domination and Resistance: Islamization of Universities and Students’ Resistance in Iran,” is currently under review. The book explores the Islamization of Iranian universities and discusses the state’s success and failure in transforming universities into ideological state apparatus. In addition to these books, I have also published several peer-reviewed papers and policy papers on different topics on Middle East Politics.
The Clerical Basij Militia is an institution created and used by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IR... more The Clerical Basij Militia is an institution created and used by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) to exert strict control over seminary students (tollab), silence dissident clergy, and nullify threats from seminarian scholars. The expansion of Clerical Basij in seminaries has led to regime control over clerics and the securitization of seminary schools. It has also resulted in the emergence of a new group among the clergy with a hybrid identity: part clergy, part security. The expansion and strengthening of this group could lead to the transformation of the Islamic Republic into a Btheological security state.K eywords Iran. Seminary schools. Clerical establishment. Securitization of seminary schools. Basij. Militia
Peace and War Studies (JPWS) aims to promote and disseminate high quality research on peace and w... more Peace and War Studies (JPWS) aims to promote and disseminate high quality research on peace and war throughout the international academic community. It also aims to provide policy makers in the United States and many other countries with in-depth analyses of contemporary issues and policy alternatives. JPWS encompasses a wide range of research topics covering peacekeeping/peacebuilding, interstate reconciliation, transitional justice, international security, human security, cyber security, weapons of mass destruction developments, terrorism, civil wars, religious/ethnic conflicts, and historical/territorial disputes around the world. JPWS is an annual peerreviewed journal published by the John and Mary Frances Patton Peace and War Center (PAWC) at Norwich University-America's first private military college and birthplace of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, universities are meant to not only produce and distribute knowle... more In the Islamic Republic of Iran, universities are meant to not only produce and distribute knowledge, but also to act as agents of political socialization. Since the establishment of the Islamic regime in 1979, the state has recklessly tried to control and Islamize universities in order to “purify” them from nonconformist students and scholars and train a new generation of devout Muslims for the state bureaucracy. Although these efforts have ultimately failed to create an Islamic university, they have led to massive brain drain and reduced the quality of Iranian higher education.
International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 2015
Social riots, popular uprisings, and revolutions are among the threats that could have jeopardize... more Social riots, popular uprisings, and revolutions are among the threats that could have jeopardized the stability of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) in its recent history. Since 1979, the clerical establishment has utilized a number of institutions and social groups and applied various strategies to control Iranian society and neutralize such threats, including policies used to silence the masses and force public allegiance to the Islamic Republic. One of Iran’s key strategies involve social manipulation, which includes the “engineering” of the minds, bodies, and emotions of its population. In addition to distributing massive amounts of propaganda and regulating and disciplining citizens’ bodies, the Islamic Republic has deliberately been depressing Iranian citizens through a policy which I call the “politics of sadness.” Through this strategy, the IRI has promoted despondency and hopelessness to the extent that citizens become paralyzed and incapable of challenging the political status quo. The result has simultaneously been satisfying the more conservative and religious parts of society while suppressing its more progressive social spheres. Through these policies, the Islamic Republic has been able to maintain power and has survived despite several social protests that have occurred in last two decades.
Iranian students have been seen as one of the country’s most influential social groups, alongside... more Iranian students have been seen as one of the country’s most influential social groups, alongside clerics and workers, and they have consistently challenged state authorities since the establishment of modern universities in 1934 (Parsa 2000). Some even believe that “the modern history of social movements in Iran is unimaginable without the student movement” (Sreberny and Gholam 2007, p. 284).
... became one of the most important tools for spreading of Islam, Shiism, and the ideas of the I... more ... became one of the most important tools for spreading of Islam, Shiism, and the ideas of the Islamic revolution” (Amir-Ebrahimi 2008a ... of exclusive Internet cafés in Basij bases, the total number of which was estimated at approximately 40,000 in 2010 (Javan Newspaper 2009). ...
The Clerical Basij Militia is an institution created and used by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IR... more The Clerical Basij Militia is an institution created and used by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) to exert strict control over seminary students (tollab), silence dissident clergy, and nullify threats from seminarian scholars. The expansion of Clerical Basij in seminaries has led to regime control over clerics and the securitization of seminary schools. It has also resulted in the emergence of a new group among the clergy with a hybrid identity: part clergy, part security. The expansion and strengthening of this group could lead to the transformation of the Islamic Republic into a Btheological security state.K eywords Iran. Seminary schools. Clerical establishment. Securitization of seminary schools. Basij. Militia
Peace and War Studies (JPWS) aims to promote and disseminate high quality research on peace and w... more Peace and War Studies (JPWS) aims to promote and disseminate high quality research on peace and war throughout the international academic community. It also aims to provide policy makers in the United States and many other countries with in-depth analyses of contemporary issues and policy alternatives. JPWS encompasses a wide range of research topics covering peacekeeping/peacebuilding, interstate reconciliation, transitional justice, international security, human security, cyber security, weapons of mass destruction developments, terrorism, civil wars, religious/ethnic conflicts, and historical/territorial disputes around the world. JPWS is an annual peerreviewed journal published by the John and Mary Frances Patton Peace and War Center (PAWC) at Norwich University-America's first private military college and birthplace of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, universities are meant to not only produce and distribute knowle... more In the Islamic Republic of Iran, universities are meant to not only produce and distribute knowledge, but also to act as agents of political socialization. Since the establishment of the Islamic regime in 1979, the state has recklessly tried to control and Islamize universities in order to “purify” them from nonconformist students and scholars and train a new generation of devout Muslims for the state bureaucracy. Although these efforts have ultimately failed to create an Islamic university, they have led to massive brain drain and reduced the quality of Iranian higher education.
International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 2015
Social riots, popular uprisings, and revolutions are among the threats that could have jeopardize... more Social riots, popular uprisings, and revolutions are among the threats that could have jeopardized the stability of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) in its recent history. Since 1979, the clerical establishment has utilized a number of institutions and social groups and applied various strategies to control Iranian society and neutralize such threats, including policies used to silence the masses and force public allegiance to the Islamic Republic. One of Iran’s key strategies involve social manipulation, which includes the “engineering” of the minds, bodies, and emotions of its population. In addition to distributing massive amounts of propaganda and regulating and disciplining citizens’ bodies, the Islamic Republic has deliberately been depressing Iranian citizens through a policy which I call the “politics of sadness.” Through this strategy, the IRI has promoted despondency and hopelessness to the extent that citizens become paralyzed and incapable of challenging the political status quo. The result has simultaneously been satisfying the more conservative and religious parts of society while suppressing its more progressive social spheres. Through these policies, the Islamic Republic has been able to maintain power and has survived despite several social protests that have occurred in last two decades.
Iranian students have been seen as one of the country’s most influential social groups, alongside... more Iranian students have been seen as one of the country’s most influential social groups, alongside clerics and workers, and they have consistently challenged state authorities since the establishment of modern universities in 1934 (Parsa 2000). Some even believe that “the modern history of social movements in Iran is unimaginable without the student movement” (Sreberny and Gholam 2007, p. 284).
... became one of the most important tools for spreading of Islam, Shiism, and the ideas of the I... more ... became one of the most important tools for spreading of Islam, Shiism, and the ideas of the Islamic revolution” (Amir-Ebrahimi 2008a ... of exclusive Internet cafés in Basij bases, the total number of which was estimated at approximately 40,000 in 2010 (Javan Newspaper 2009). ...
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