Using religious political parties in Iran and Turkey as case studies, the authors argue that the parties are not passively constrained by religious doctrine. Rather, they actively and continually construct religious narratives that respond to their immediate threat perceptions and political environment. Read more at Political Science Quarterly.
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, A.Kadir YildirimSeptember 8, 2020
On September 22, 1980, Saddam Hussein initiated what became one of the longest wars of the twentieth century — a war of attrition between Iran and Iraq that finally ended in August 1988. Fellow Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar examines the domestic causes of the Iran–Iraq War, delving into secret discussions among Iranian political and military elites during the conflict, their analyses of their own performance on the battlefield, and their revealing public disputes and blame game decades later.
Drawing upon primary documents from various Iranian communists and Islamists, this research paper questions the conventional wisdom that the Islamists' takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 was a grassroots reaction to American policies. The author argues that competition between the Islamists and leftists instead may have been a key driver of the hostage crisis.
