My general fields of research and teaching are comparative politics of the Middle East with a focus on issues related to political economy, authoritarianism, and social movements.  Much of my writing focuses on modern Iran, although I have studied, conducted research, and taught in several other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. 

Much of my work has revolved around questions of change and continuity as reflected and produced by social groups, economic organizations, and political imperatives.  The book, Bazaar and State in Iran (2007), was based on my dissertation research and engages with the literature on networks and political institutions in order to trace the structure of the Tehran Bazaar under the Pahlavi monarchy and Islamic Republic, and shed light on the organization and governance of markets as well as state-society dynamics, more generally.  The analysis stresses unintended consequences and historical contingencies, while identifying mechanisms and comparative issues that traverse the immediate issue of bazaars and the Iranian case.  I have also published articles on clergy-state relations and authoritarian survival in Iran.  My current research examines free trade zones in the Persian Gulf in order to examine the processes of imperialism and globalization from the perspective of local circuits of trade and regional strategic conditions.

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• Bazaar and State in Iran: Politics of the Tehran Marketplace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• “Regime Loyalty and Bazari Representation under the Islamic Republic of Iran: Dilemmas of the Society of Islamic Coalition,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 41, 2(May 2009)
• “Contestation without Democracy: Elite Fragmentation in Iran,” in Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance, Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michelle Penner Angrist (eds.), (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 63-88
• “Conceptualizing the Bazaar,” Goft-o-gu 42(Esfand 1383 [February 2005]), 141-168. [In Persian]
• “Tehran Bazaar: Continuity or Transformation?” Goft-o-gu 41(Bahman 1383 [January 2005]), 11-47. [In Persian]
• “Turban or Hat, Seminarian or Soldier: State Building and Clergy Building in Reza Shah’s Iran,” Journal of Church and State 45,1 (Winter 2003), 81 -112
• Co-authored with Anthony Gill, “State-Building and Religious Resources: An Institutional Theory of Church-State Relations in Iran and Mexico,” Politics and Society 27,3 (September 1999), 431-465

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