Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace. Cambridge Middle East Studies.

Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace. Cambridge Middle East Studies.
Author: Arang Keshavarzian
Publisher:
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2014-05-14
Genre: Bazaars (Markets)
ISBN: 9780511279188

The Tehran bazaar has always been central to the Iranian economy and, indeed, to the Iranian urban experience. Arang Kesharvarzian's fascinating book compares the economics and politics of the marketplace under the Pahlavis, who sought to undermine it in the drive for modernisation, and under the subsequent revolutionary regime, which came to power with a mandate to preserve the bazaar as an 'Islamic' institution. The outcomes of their respective policies were completely at odds with their intentions. Despite the Shah's hostile approach, the bazaar flourished under his rule, and maintained its organisational autonomy to such an extent that it played an integral role in the Islamic revolution. Conversely, the Islamic Republic implemented policies that unwittingly transformed the ways in which the bazaar operated, thus undermining its capacity for political mobilization. Arang Kesharvarzian's book affords unusual insights into the politics, economics and society of Iran across four decades.

Bazaar and State in Iran

Bazaar and State in Iran
Author: Arang Keshavarzian
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2007-04-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139464329

The Tehran Bazaar has always been central to the Iranian economy and indeed, to the Iranian urban experience. Arang Keshavarzian's fascinating book compares the economics and politics of the marketplace under the Pahlavis, who sought to undermine it in the drive for modernisation and under the subsequent revolutionary regime, which came to power with a mandate to preserve the bazaar as an 'Islamic' institution. The outcomes of their respective policies were completely at odds with their intentions. Despite the Shah's hostile approach, the bazaar flourished under his rule and maintained its organisational autonomy to such an extent that it played an integral role in the Islamic revolution. Conversely, the Islamic Republic implemented policies that unwittingly transformed the ways in which the bazaar operated, thus undermining its capacity for political mobilisation. Arang Keshavarizian's book affords unusual insights into the politics, economics and society of Iran across four decades.

Is the Tehran Bazaar Dead? Foucault, Politics, and Architecture

Is the Tehran Bazaar Dead? Foucault, Politics, and Architecture
Author: Farzaneh Haghighi
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2018-10-01
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1527517799

To examine the political role of architecture, this book presents an original engagement with the largest center of attraction in Tehran, namely, its bazaar. Through a rigorous study, it goes beyond the conventional sociopolitical and architectural discourses of this marketplace by considering architecture as an event. This book offers alternative modes of spatial thinking on a micropolitical level. Emphasis is placed on the focused exploration of key notions mainly drawn from the works of Michel Foucault. It deploys effective methods and shows how philosophical concepts can be deployed as a tool to analyse the ways through which architecture transforms individuals through the act of exchange—whether of words, things, bodies, or thoughts.

Power, Perception, and Politics in the Making of Iranian Grand Strategy

Power, Perception, and Politics in the Making of Iranian Grand Strategy
Author: Kevjn Lim
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2022-07-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3031043901

This book explains changes to Iranian grand strategy over the past four decades, and it does so by advancing a multicausal model that unifies the three main paradigms of International Relations (IR) theory. Hence, ideas (constructivism) mediate between the structure of material capabilities (realism) and agents (liberalism) and interact with each to produce, respectively, threat perception and political preferences. Using these two explanatory factors, the author demonstrates how the Islamic Republic’s grand strategy has systematically varied over time to produce a mix of outcomes that includes balancing, expansionism, bandwagoning, appeasement, engagement and retrenchment. Beyond its theoretical contribution, this book is policy-relevant in that it explains – and predicts – the external conduct of what is arguably the Middle East’s most consequential actor, with implications reverberating far beyond the region. Academic in conception and rigor, the book is intended not only for specialists and practitioners but appeals to the lay reader interested in the broader Middle East/West Asia, the region’s relationship with major powers, and regional conflict dynamics.

Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran

Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran
Author: Pamela Karimi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2013-05-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135101388

Examining Iran’s recent history through the double lens of domesticity and consumer culture, Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran demonstrates that a significant component of the modernization process in Iran advanced beyond political and public spheres. On the cusp of Iran’s entry into modernity, the rules and tenets that had traditionally defined the Iranian home began to vanish and the influx of new household goods gradually led to the substantial physical expansion of the domestic milieu. Subsequently, architects, designers, and commercial advertisers shifted their attention from commercial and public architecture to the new home and its contents. Domesticity and consumer culture also became topics of interest among politicians, Shiite religious scholars, and the Left, who communicated their respective views via the popular media and numerous other means. In the interim, ordinary Iranian families, who were capable of selectively appropriating aspects of their immediate surroundings, demonstrated their resistance toward the officially sanctioned transformations. Through analyzing a series of case studies that elucidate such phenomena and appraising a wide range of objects and archival documents—from furnishings, appliances, architectural blueprints, and maps to photographs, films, TV series, novels, artworks, scrapbooks, work-logs, personal letters and reports—this book highlights the significance of private life in social, economic, and political contexts of modern Iran. Tackling the subject of home from a variety of perspectives, Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran thus shows the interplay between local aspirations, foreign influences, gender roles, consumer culture and women’s education as they intersect with taste, fashion, domestic architecture and interior design.

The Political Science of the Middle East

The Political Science of the Middle East
Author: Marc Lynch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2022
Genre: Middle East
ISBN: 0197640044

"This book is a generational stocktaking over the contemporary state of political science research on the Middle East and North Africa. It presents the major theoretical developments that have unfolded since the Arab uprisings in 2011-12, while highlighting the critical knowledge and fruitful literatures that regional experts have contributed back to mainstream political science. It features nearly 50 regional specialists, whose twelve chapters tackle the prevailing themes that gird the contemporary study of Middle East politics. Among the many topics touched upon are authoritarianism and democracy, contentious politics, international relations, regional security, military institutions, conflict and violence, political economy, economic development, religion, Islamist movements, social identity, sectarian politics, public opinion, migration and refugees, and local politics and governance. Each chapter reviews key debates and pathbreaking findings, while presenting highly curated references that illustrate the breadth and depth of ongoing research agendas"--

Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities

Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities
Author: Haim Yacobi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2019-07-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 131723118X

Presenting the current debate about cities in the Middle East from Sana’a, Beirut and Jerusalem to Cairo, Marrakesh and Gaza, the book explores urban planning and policy, migration, gender and identity as well as politics and economics of urban settings in the region. This handbook moves beyond essentialist and reductive analyses of identity, urban politics, planning, and development in cities in the Middle East, and instead offers critical engagement with both historical and contemporary urban processes in the region. Approaching "Cities" as multi-dimensional sites, products of political processes, knowledge production and exchange, and local and global visions as well as spatial artefacts. Importantly, in the different case studies and theoretical approaches, there is no attempt to idealise urban politics, planning, and everyday life in the Middle East –– which (as with many other cities elsewhere) are also situations of contestation and violence –– but rather to highlight how cities in the region, and especially those which are understudied, revolve around issues of housing, infrastructure, participation and identity, amongst other concerns. Analysing a variety of cities in the Middle East, the book is a significant contribution to Middle East Studies. It is an essential resource for students and academics interested in Geography, Regional and Urban Studies of the Middle East.

City of Knowledge in Twentieth Century Iran

City of Knowledge in Twentieth Century Iran
Author: Setrag Manoukian
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2012-03-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136627170

This book presents a cultural history of modern Iran through the perspective of the city. Addressing the relationship between history, poetry and politics in Iran, the author demonstrates that the question of knowledge is crucial to an understanding of the political and existential dimensions of life in Iran today.

Nomads in Postrevolutionary Iran

Nomads in Postrevolutionary Iran
Author: Lois Beck
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2014-09-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317743873

Examining the rapid transition in Iran from a modernizing, westernizing, secularizing monarchy (1941-79) to a hard-line, conservative, clergy-run Islamic republic (1979-), this book focuses on the ways this process has impacted the Qashqa’i—a rural, nomadic, tribally organized, Turkish-speaking, ethnic minority of a million and a half people who are dispersed across the southern Zagros Mountains. Analysing the relationship between the tribal polity and each of the two regimes, the book goes on to explain the resilience of the people’s tribal organizations, kinship networks, and politicized ethnolinguistic identities to demonstrate how these structures and ideologies offered the Qashqa’i a way to confront the pressures emanating from the two central governments. Existing scholarly works on politics in Iran rarely consider Iranian society outside the capital of Tehran and beyond the reach of the details of national politics. Local-level studies on Iran—accounts of the ways people actually lived—are now rare, especially after the revolution. Based on long-term anthropological research, Nomads in Postrevolutionary Iran provides a unique insight into how national-level issues relate to the local level and will be of interest to scholars and researchers in Anthropolgy, Iranian Studies and Middle Eastern Studies.

Heroes to Hostages

Heroes to Hostages
Author: Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1009322095

Outlines the evolving U.S.-Iran relationship from 1800 until 1988, highlighting the intersection of diplomatic, social, and cultural changes.