My general fields of research and teaching are comparative politics of the Middle East with a focus on issues related to political economy, transnationalism, and contentious politics in authoritarian contexts. Much of my research and writing focuses on modern Iran and the Persian Gulf, although I have studied, conducted research, and taught in several other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey.
My research has revolved around questions of social change and struggles as reflected in and produced by socio-economic hierarchies, political imperatives, spatial practices, modes of accumulation, and collective solidarities. The book, Bazaar and State in Iran, was based on my intensive field 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, while identifying mechanisms and contradictions 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 the Persian Gulf in order to analyze the processes of late imperialism and capital accumulation from the perspective of local circuits of trade and transnational alliances. By examining global, imperial, regional, and local political economies since the late nineteenth century, I seek to locate the Gulf in various modes and in relation to multiple scales of political control and economic production. Through this framework I both explore transnational social processes and the question of to what extent and in what ways the Persian Gulf has been a unitary space in modern times. In this pursuit, I have studied ports, urbanization, free trade zones, geopolitical imaginaries, and labor movements in the Gulf region. My essays on these topics have appeared in journals such as Politics and Society, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Geopolitics, Arab Studies Journal, Economy and Society, and International Journal of Urban and Regional Researchin addition to a number of edited volumes. In the past and currently serve on the editorial committees of Middle East Report and International Journal of Middle East Studies.
I teach both undergraduates and graduate students. I offer an introductory survey of Middle East politics of undergrads and more specialized seminars on such topics as “Revolutionary Iran,” “Political Geographies of the Middle East ,” and “The Persian Gulf and United States from ARAMCO to NYU-AD.” My graduate teaching includes a seminar surveying approaches to the study of Middle East politics and more thematic courses related to my research and student interests, such as "Imperialism and Hegemony in the Middle East" and “Transnational Middle East.” I have had the opportunity to work with PhD and MA students at NYU and beyond in fields including politics, Middle East studies, history, anthropology, and urban studies.