Farhad Kazemi

Farhad Kazemi is an Iranian-American political scientist and professor emeritus of Politics and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University (NYU). He is known for his research on political development, urbanization, civil society, and gender in the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has published on Iran and broader Middle Eastern political issues, and has held academic and administrative positions during his four-decade career. He is also the former president of Middle East Studies Association and Association for Iranian Studies.

Education Kazemi received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Colgate University in 1964. He earned a Master of Arts in Political Science from George Washington University in 1966, followed by a second M.A. in Regional Studies–Middle East from Harvard University in 1968. In 1996, he received a joint appointment in the Departments of Politics and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. Upon his retirement in 2011, he was named professor emeritus.

Kazemi also held visiting academic appointments at several institutions internationally. These included St. Antony's College at the University of Oxford, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and NYU's campus in Prague.

He has served as president of both the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and the Society for Iranian Studies (cofounder). He is a former editor of the journal Iranian Studies , served as a Trustee of the Encyclopædia Iranica, and was a member of several academic and policy organizations, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kazemi received research grants and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Education, Social Science Research Council, and several academic and cultural institutions. His research has covered topics such as political participation, urbanization, civil society, and cultural change in the Middle East.

Kazemi was a member of the 13-member U.S. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, a congressional commission formed in the early 2000s. He also was the coconvener of annual academia-intelligence conferences for which he was given an award. Kazemi has served as a consultant to the White House (President Jimmy Carter), the State Department (Secretary Madeleine Albright) and the Defense Department. His 1980 book Poverty and Revolution in Iran examined the political consciousness of Tehran's urban poor during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, arguing that migrants became politically mobilized through revolutionary slogans rather than integration into moderate political movements. and A Way Prepared: Essays on Islamic Culture in Honor of Richard Ettinghausen (1988, with R.D. McChesney). His work has also addressed themes of civil society, authoritarianism, and gender relations in post-revolutionary Iran.

Views and opinions Kazemi has expressed concern over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly during the George W. Bush administration.

Kazemi has also written on the shifting status of women in post-revolutionary Iran. He described women as “the real harbinger of change” and pointed to the rise of organized Muslim women's groups, the impact of the Iran-Iraq War, and societal evolution as forces compelling greater inclusion of women in public life.

Selected publications

Books