Idris Ahmedi is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University!
Idris Ahmedi will discuss contending perspectives on the future of Iran with respect to its ethnic diversity. Is diversity a threat to Iran’s territorial integrity, or a facilitator to the rise of meaningful democracy?
Like many countries in the Middle East, Iran is multiethnic or multinational. Like all states in the region, the Iranian state embarked on a project of “nation-building” at the beginning of the 20th century. Nation-building in Iran was essentially an attempt to create a monolithic “Iranian nation” by suppressing ethnic diversity and imposing Persian ethnic identity on the other ethnic communities.