As America reaches election day in November, the 2024 presidential race has been found to be a topic of the utmost importance to not only Americans but foreign actors. As influence of U.S Policy …
Why Iranian Elections Don’t Matter Anymore
Elections in Iran used to be quite competitive and consequential. However, the democratic elements of the regime were successively weakened and even moderate former President Rouhani is prevented from …
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Giving a Voice Back to the Silenced
In Iran, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed on September 16, 2022, while being detained for "wearing her hijab incorrectly". This sparked a mass of protests throughout the country. This incident …
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Stealth Authoritarianism and Feminist Outcry in Iran
In mid-September of this year Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman was taken into police custody and died shortly after. The police stated that Mahsa Amini had a heart attack and that was the cause of her …
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From a Covid Crisis to a Vaccine Crisis: The Case in Iran
There is clear cut evidence, both in reports on democracy and through empirical evidence from around the globe, that the trend of the world is in the direction of autocracy, away from the considered …
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Social Media Bans in Iran
On January 15, 2021, a popular messaging app called Signal, crashed globally. After WhatsApp altered its privacy agreement to share its data with Facebook, Signal saw a surge of new users, prompting …
Between Iraq and a Hard Place
October marks the one-year anniversary of Iraq’s anti-government protests. These protests have shaken Iraq while it still recovers from the devastating war with ISIS. Iraqis are furious with the …
Killing in the Name of Giants
Assassinations are tools of the trade for many global actors. Even if not always successful, they can send a strong message to the international community. With Russian opposition leader Alexei …