"The (De)Secularizing Impact of Politics on Iran's Theocracy"

Ph.D.It has been three decades since religion has gone "public." The Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and the establishment of the Moral Majority in the United States, all of which occurred in 1979, signified the "return of religion from exile." The return of religion called into question the foundation of international relations theories, in particular realism, for ignoring non-material factors. Indeed, social scientists often refer to the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath, including the Hostage Crisis, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Rushdie Affair, as the ultimate example of the increasing role of religion in world politics. However, these scholars frequently fail to take into account the impact that these very incidents have had on Islamism itself.This dissertation combines comparative politics and international relations theories to examine the evolution of the concept of Velayat-e Faqih (the Rule of the Jurisprudent) in post-revolutionary Iran. Against the background of domestic and international politics, it process-traces the way in which democratic and authoritarian interpretations of Islam have emerged in the country. Using a realist framework, it argues that a weak state may reduce the ideological fervor of its foreign policy and then adjust and institutionalize its official religious narrative to bless its pragmatism. However, if it perceives itself as strong, the state will return to its core ideology, weaken its pragmatic institutions, and develop religious narratives corresponding to its rising position. The discursive consequences of critical junctures (i.e. war and other major foreign policy related events) become part of the domestic mechanism, which has its own similar logic. This dissertation demonstrates how religion, as a set of competing meanings and contested doctrines that alternatively emerge in various institutions, offers theological latitudes for political actions. The state as well as Islamic parties and factions benefit tremendously from this repertoire in their quest to challenge or strengthen the status quo

Assessing (In)security after the Arab Spring: The Case of Egypt

In nearly three years, Egypt has transitioned from a large-scale uprising against one of the region's longest-standing rulers to an even more massive revolt that led to the military ousting the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. Between the two popular uprisings, new pacts and unlikely alliances emerged, deepened, and, in some cases, then disappeared. For its part, the army evolved from being an accomplice of the old regime, to then being an uneasy partner of the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood and, most recently, on to rebranding itself as an ally of non-Islamists and a protector of the popular will. Loosely aligned liberals, leftists, and nationalists, meanwhile, shifted from offering support for democratic elections to backing a “democratic” coup out of fear that the elected Islamists might monopolize and never relinquish power in a conservative new regime. That fear came in response to the Brotherhood's own shifting position, which moved from a commitment to “participation not domination” to a strategy of controlling the legislature and the presidency, although they were ultimately forced back into hiding before they could neutralize the judiciary and the army. And finally, the other Islamist movement, the ultraconservative Salafists, initially displayed no interest in the political process, but then mobilized and ultimately enjoyed striking success in the elections of 2011–12. Surprisingly, however, despite their presumed ideological proximity to the Brotherhood, many Salafists went on to back the military's removal of Morsi in July 2013, but then did not lend support to the interim government that was constructed in wake of Morsi's fall. In this multilayered, fast-paced political environment, mass protests, arrests, and violence have become routine.</jats:p

We Are All Coethnics: State Identities and Foreign Interventions in Violent Conflict

AbstractWhat is the role of religious identity in states’ decisions to intervene in foreign conflicts? Existing scholarship on external interventions in armed conflict pays little attention to religion, while many studies on religion and conflict give intrinsic importance to actors’ religious beliefs. In this article, we draw on insights from the comparative study of ethnic identity to explain foreign intervention decisions. Ethnic constructivism has been developed to explain domestic and group identity politics, but we demonstrate its utility for explaining state behavior in international politics. Based on the core premise of ethnic constructivism, we argue that coreligionism and coethnicity are poor predictors of states’ foreign policies. Rather, states create narratives of ethnic affinity in the service of political objectives. We use archival and other primary sources to test the theory's expectations through a structured within-case comparative analysis of Iran and its response to violent conflicts in Lebanon, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan. Our findings offer robust support for our theory while providing theoretical and methodological implications for the study of “religious” and other identity-based conflicts in international politics.</jats:p

Key Challenges for U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Over the past decade, the Middle East has seen major transformations, including popular uprisings, civil and armed conflict, and humanitarian emergencies. The region also faces a number of other important challenges, ranging from effective governance to religious pluralism to geopolitical rivalries. This policy brief is the result of a one-day conference where experts examined the most pressing issues in the region for U.S. policymakers. It provides analyses and policy recommendations regarding the evolution of Islamist politics, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, security in the Persian Gulf, and displacement in the Middle East