Synopsis: Hossein Bashiriyeh is one of the key political thinkers of post-revolutionary Iran. He is credited with pioneering political sociology in Iranian academic life and was very influential in introducing democratic theories and ideas to a generation of Iranian intellectuals and political figures who later played significant roles in the democratic and reform movement. His two and a half decades as a scholar and mentor in Iran has left indelible marks on successive generations of political science graduates, many of whom have gone on to become academics themselves or have secured policy-making positions in the state bureaucracy.