My research interests are at the intersection of political thought and international relations, with special focus on topics in democratic theory, non-Western liberal thought, diplomatic history and theory, US-Iran relations, and Iran’s political development. I have published on these topics in academic, policy, and popular periodicals. I am the author, co-author, and editor of four volumes: Hidden Liberalism: Burdened Visions of Progress in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the U.S.-Iran Conflict (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), and Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation Through Local, Global, and Cosmopolitan Challenges (Bloomsbury, 2023). Currently, I serve as the Books and Reviews Editor of International Studies Review, the flagship review journal of the International Studies Association.
Books
Selected Articles & Book Chapters:
“Broadening Human Rights: For A Pluralist Approach” (with Anthony Chase), in Why Human Rights Matter in Contemporary World Affairs, edited by Mahmood Monshipouri, Routledge, 2020.
“International and Regional Responses to ISIS,” in The Future of ISIS: Regional and International Implications, edited by Sumit Ganguly and Feisal al-Istrabadi, Brookings Press, 2018.
“Political Legitimacy, Contingency, and Rights in the Middle East and North Africa,” in The Routledge Handbook of Human Rights in the Middle East, edited by Anthony T. Chase, Routledge, 2016.
“Pariah Diplomacy,” in SAGE Handbook on Diplomacy, edited by Pauline Kerr, Paul Sharp and Costas Constantinou, SAGE Publications, 2016.
“Reflexive Diplomacy,” in Reflexivity and International Relations, edited by Jack L. Amoureux and Brent J. Steele, Routledge Press, 2015.
“The Future of US-Iran Relations,” in US-Iran Misperceptions: A Critical Dialogue, edited by John Tirman and Abbas Maleki, Bloomsbury, 2014.
“The Wages of Enmity: On U.S.-Iran Relations,” International Politics Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 1 (3-10), June 2014.
“Democratic Solidarity: Rethinking Democracy Promotion in the New Middle East,” Security Dialogue, 44/5-6 (October-December 2013): 411-429.
“Diplomatic Imaginations: Mediating Estrangement in World Society,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 27/3 (2014): 459-474.
“Politics and Democratic Consciousness in Modern Iran,” Review of Middle East Studies, 45/1 (February 2011): 62-68.
“Diplomacy and the Public Imagination,” Chapter Four in Sustainable Diplomacies, edited by Costas Constantinou and James Der Derian, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Selected Reviews:
Editor and contributor, “Symposium on Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook by Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh Rahimkhani (Syracuse University Press, 2018),” Iranian Studies, Vol. 53, Nos. 3-4 (2020): 675-684.
Reviews of The Propriety of Liberty by Duncan Kelly (Princeton University Press, 2010) and The Priority of Democracy by Jack Knight and James Johnson (Princeton University Press, 2011), Political Studies Review, 2013, Vol. 11, No. 1.
Review of Boundaries and Belonging: States and Societies in the Struggle to Shape Identities and Local Practices, ed. Joel S. Migdal, Cambridge University Press, 2004, MESA Bulletin, 2006, Vol. 40, No. 2.
Review of Planetary Politics: Human Rights, Terror and the Global Society, Stephen Eric Bronner, Lanham MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, Political Studies Review, 2006 Vol. 4.