Arang Keshavarzian

State Building and Religious Resources: An Institutional Theory of Church-State Relations in Iran and Mexico:

In the past several decades, religion has made a surprising and dramatic resurgence in political life. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 reminded scholars of the mobilizing power of religious fundamentalism. In Latin America, evangelical protestantism has been altering the social arena and influencing presidential elections in countries such as Columbia, Guatemala, and Peru. Likewise, religious movements are transforming the political landscape in nations as diverse as Algeria, the Philippines, Poland, South Korea, Tibet, and the United States, to name just a few. Scholars have been quick to note the importance of the resurgence of religious politics, inspiring Samuel Huntington to posit that future political conflict will not be between states but between “civilizations” or “cultures,” of which religion is a primary component. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences considered the topic worthy enough to fund a four-volume, cross-disciplinary study—The Fundamentalism Project—examining the changing role of religion in societies around the globe. The growing interest in religion and politics is a recent phenomenon. Influenced by modernization theory, the reigning notion among political scientists prior to the 1980s was that as societies industrialized, religion would fade into the

Geopolitics and the Genealogy of Free Trade Zones in the Persian Gulf

Free trade zones have been championed by policy makers as important mechanisms for the “economic liberalisation” and “globalisation” of the Middle East. While a growing number of political economists have begun to investigate the performance of these projects, few have considered why states voluntarily limit their sovereign powers by establishing these liberalised territories. To address this question, this paper studies the Jebel Ali free trade zone in Dubai (UAE) and the Kish free trade zone in Iran, two of the earliest such projects in the region. Rather than being products of neoliberal ideology or pressure from advanced industrial economies, the essay argues that paradoxically these zones were developed by the Iranian state and Dubai emirate to project territorial sovereignty in turbulent geostrategic settings and moments as well as nodes to circulate rent to domestic and international members of ruling coalitions. The geostrategic and state-building logics informed when, where, and how these projects were developed. More generally, this analysis illustrates that the Middle East is neither absent from the process of globalisation, nor does it simply respond passively and reactively to this complex process. Free trade zones are an example of local strategies working in consort with international processes to fashion new forms of economic and political interconnectedness.

Beyond 1979 and 2011: When Comparisons Distract

In the midst of several research trips to Iran in the 1990s, I spent one year living and conducting exploratory research in Cairo. In Tehran, revolution seemed unfinished if not perpetual, yet in Egypt it was unimaginable. In spite of the entrenched support for the Leader and the political status quo, at this time Irans reformist movement was robust. The policies of the Islamic Republic and consequences of the eight-year war with Iraq unleashed new social conditions that combined with established forces to push for womens rights, freedom of speech, independent civil associations, and exposing contradictions in the postrevolutionary order.

Re-Mapping Transnational Connections in the Middle East

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Gateways to the World: Port Cities in the Gulf

Within a matter of decades, Gulf port cities have rapidly evolved from regional centers of cultural and economic exchange to globalizing cities deeply embedded within the global economy. Explicitly evident features of Gulf cities such as international hotel chains, shopping centers, and entertainment complexes have classified these cities as centers of consumption. Other urban trends, such as exhibition and conference centers, media and knowledge cities, and branch campuses of Western universities have integrated Gulf cities within numerous global networks. In line with this, the CIRS research initiative on “The Evolution of Gulf Global Cities” examines dynamics of urban configurations in the Gulf region (the GCC, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran) in order to understand the city as a cultural and social space. Over the course of two working group meetings, CIRS invited academics from various disciplinary backgrounds as well as architects, urban planners, and designers to discuss their research findings and to present papers linking macro-level knowledge of urbanization and modernization projects in the Gulf with the micro-level understanding of everyday spaces of living and human interaction. The chapters are combined into an edited volume titled, Gateways to the World: Port Cities in the Persian Gulf.

The Plurality of Politics in Post-Revolutionary Iran

Te Persian Puzzle, Eternal Iran, and Hidden Iran: these are three among the cavalcade of trade books that publishers have trotted out to explain Iran to general audiences as we mark the passage of 30 years since the Islamic Revolution.1 The starting point, as these titles show, is that the Islamic Republic is an enigma. And so it remains when the reader puts down these books: the authors discuss post-revolutionary Iranian politics as if they are too complex to be understood by nonexperts and without specific knowledge of the personalities and motivations of the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Iran is sui generis, an ancient, proud civilization fraught with contradictions and tensions inscrutable to those unschooled in the Persian politesse called ta‘arrof or the wily bargaining of the bazaar. Add the volatile element of Shiite Islam to the mix—embodied in turbans and veils that cover and “hide”—and you’ve got a “puzzle” indeed.