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Compared to rival ideologies, liberalism has fared rather poorly in modern Iran. This is all the more remarkable given the essentially liberal substance of various social and political struggles – for liberal legality, individual rights and freedoms, and pluralism – in the century-long period since the demise of the Qajar dynasty and the subsequent transformation of the country into a modern nation-state. The deeply felt but largely invisible purchase of liberal political ideas in Iran challenges us to think more expansively about the trajectory of various intellectual developments since the emergence of a movement for reform and constitutionalism in the late nineteenth century. It complicates parsimonious accounts of Shi'ism, secularism, socialism, nationalism, and royalism as defining or representative ideologies of particular eras. Hidden Liberalism offers a critical examination of the reasons behind liberalism's invisible yet influential status, and its attendant ethical quandaries, in Iranian political and intellectual discourses.
Why does the rift between the US and Iran persist? Iran and the United States have been at odds for forty years, locked in a cold war that has run the gamut from harsh rhetoric to hostage-taking, from crippling sanctions to targeted killings. In Republics of Myth, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman argue that a major contributing factor to this tenacious enmity is how each nation views itself. The two nations have differing interests and grievances about each other, but their often-deadly confrontation derives from the very different national narratives that shape their politics, actions, and vision of their own destiny in the world. The dominant American narrative is the myth of ...
Becoming Enemies brings the unique methods of critical oral history, developed to study flashpoints from the Cold War such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, to understand U.S. and Iranian relations from the fall of the Shah in 1978 through the Iranian hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq war. Scholars and former officials involved with U.S. and UN policy take a fresh look at U.S and Iranian relations during this time, with special emphasis on the U.S. role in the Iran-Iraq War. With its remarkable declassified documentation and oral testimony that bear directly on questions of U.S. policymaking with regard to the Iran-Iraq War, Becoming Enemies reveals much that was previously unknown about U.S. policy before, during, and after the war. They go beyond mere reportage to offer lessons regarding fundamental foreign policy challenges to the U.S. that transcend time and place.
Everything began to unravel on October 5, 1986, when a Nicaraguan soldier downed an American plane carrying arms to “Contra” guerrillas, exposing a tightly held U.S. clandestine program. A month later, reports surfaced that Washington had been covertly selling arms to Iran (our sworn enemy and a state sponsor of terrorism), in exchange for help freeing hostages in Beirut. The profits, it turned out, were going to support the Contras, despite an explicit ban by Congress. In the firestorm that erupted, shocking details emerged, raising the prospect of impeachment, and the American public confronted a scandal as momentous as it was confusing. At its center was President Ronald Reagan amid a...
Recent events such as ‘Iran’s Green Revolution’ and the ‘Arab Uprisings’ have exploded notions that human rights are irrelevant to Middle Eastern and North African politics. Increasingly seen as a global concern, human rights are at the fulcrum of the region’s on-the-ground politics, transnational intellectual debates, and global political intersections. The Routledge Handbook on Human Rights and the Middle East and North Africa: emphasises the need to consider human rights in all their dimensions, rather than solely focusing on the political dimension, in order to understand the structural reasons behind the persistence of human rights violations; explores the various frameworks...
This book aims at gauging whether the nature of US foreign policy decision-making has changed after the Cold War as radically as a large body of literature seems to suggest, and develops a new framework to interpret presidential decision-making in foreign policy. It locates the study of risk in US foreign policy in a wider intellectual landscape that draws on contemporary debates in historiography, international relations and Presidential studies. Based on developments in the health and environment literature, the book identifies the President as the ultimate risk-manager, demonstrating how a President is called to perform a delicate balancing act between risks on the domestic/political side...
The Harvard Law Review's December 2016 issue, Number 2, features these contents: • Article, "Constitutionally Forbidden Legislative Intent," by Richard H. Fallon, Jr. • Article, "Deal Process Design in Management Buyouts," by Guhan Subramanian • Book Review, "Law and Moral Dilemmas," by Bert I. Huang • Note, "Charming Betsy and the Intellectual Property Provisions of Trade Agreements" • Note, "Political Questions, Public Rights, and Sovereign Immunity" Furthermore, student commentary analyzes Recent Cases on equitable relief from a foreign judgment under RICO, mootness after a 2014 Missouri election, compelling an Internet Service Provider to produce data stored overseas, immunity ...
In Wars of Ambition, Afshon Ostovar explores America's decline and Iran's rise in the Middle East since 9/11 and through 2023. It examines America's involvement in the region, Iran's counter to it, and how their clash for a new regional order became entwined in a broader, more complex struggle involving multiple regional and foreign powers. In telling that story, Ostovar shows how the battle for the Middle East reflects the politics and dividing lines of an emergent multipolar world.
In Plural Diplomacies: Normative Predicaments and Functional Imperatives, Noé Cornago asserts the need to restore the long-interrupted continuity between the relevance of diplomacy as raison de système - in a world which is much more than a world of States - and its unique value as a way to mediate the many alienations experienced by individuals and social groups.
In US foreign policy, conflict has replaced diplomacy. At home, wars on crime, drugs, immigration, and terrorism dissolve barriers between law enforcement and combat. Tracing the origins of militarized policy to post-Vietnam fears of waning US power, Osamah Khalil argues that it is time to discard forever wars and invest in political solutions.