Prospects for Democracy in Iran: Assessing the Regime and the Opposition - Civil Society
A panel discussion about internet activism and the sexual revolution in Iran with Pardis Mahdavi and John Kelly. The panel is moderated by Abbas Milani.
Bio
John Kelly
John Kelly is the founder and chief scientist of Morningside Analytics, a firm specializing in social network analysis of global online media. John is also an affiliate of the Berkman Center on Organizational Innovation at Columbia University.
From 1999 to 2002, john co-directed the Interactive Design Lab at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to founding Morningside Analytics, eh applied his methods as a consultant for clients in Washington D.C. and New York. He is also active in academia, working with the Berkman Center on their Internet and Democracy project, as well as their Open Net Initiative.
Pardis Mahdavi
Pardis Mahdavi has recently joined Pomona College as assistant professor of anthropology. Her research interest include sexuality, human rights, transnational feminism and public health in the context of changing global and political structures. Mahdavi has received outstanding research awards from the American Public Health Association, the Society for Medical Anthropology and the Society for Applied Anthropology. She is currently an editor for Rahavard Quarterly, a journal devoted to contemporary social issues in Iran and amongst the Iranian diaspora.
Abbas Milani
Abbas Milani is a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. In addition, Dr. Milani is Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University and a visiting professor in the department of political science.
His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations, Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani was a professor of history and political science and chair of the department at Notre Dame de Namur University and a research fellow at the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
Milani was an assistant professor in the faculty of law and political science at Tehran University and a member of the board of directors of Tehran University's Center for International Studies from 1979 to 1987.
He was a research fellow at the Iranian Center for Social Research from 1977 to 1978 and an assistant professor at the National University of Iran from 1975 to 1977.
Country, Middle East, southwestern Asia. Area: 636,374 sq mi (1,648,200 sq km). Population (2009 est.): 74,196,000. Capital: Tehran. Persians constitute the largest ethnic group; other ethnic groups include Azerbaijanians, Kurds, Lurs, Bakhtyari, and Baloch. Languages: Persian (Farsi; official), numerous others. Religions: Islam (official; predominantly Shi'ite); also Zoroastrianism. Currency: rial. Iran occupies a high plateau, rising higher than 1,500 feet (460 metres) above sea level, and is surrounded largely by mountains. More than half of its surface area consists of salt deserts and other wasteland. About one-tenth of its land is arable, and another one-fourth is suitable for grazing. Iran's rich petroleum reserves account for about one-tenth of world reserves and are the basis of its economy. It is a unitary Islamic republic with one legislative house and several oversight bodies dominated by clergy. The head of state and government is the president, but supreme authority rests with the rahbar (leader), a ranking cleric. Human habitation in Iran dates to some 100,000 years ago, but recorded history began with the Elamites c. 3000 BCE. The Medes flourished from c. 728 but were overthrown in 550 by the Persians, who were in turn conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE. The Parthians (seeParthia) created an empire that lasted from 247 BCE to 226 CE, when control passed to the Sasanian dynasty. Various Muslim dynasties ruled from the 7th century. In 1501 the Safavid dynasty was established and lasted until 1736. The Qajar dynasty ruled from 1796, but in the 19th century the country was economically controlled by the Russian and British empires. Reza Khan (seeReza Shah Pahlavi) seized power in a coup (1921). His son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi alienated religious leaders with a program of modernization and Westernization and was overthrown in 1979; Shi'ite cleric Ruhollah Khomeini then set up an Islamic republic, and Western influence was suppressed. The destructive Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s ended in a stalemate. Since the 1990s the government has gradually moved to a more liberal conduct of state affairs.
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