About Kian Tajbakhsh
I write on Iran, the Middle East, democracy, global affairs, and the political and economic life of cities, bringing together academic scholarship, public commentary, and lived political experience. I am Visiting Professor of International Relations at NYU and Fellow at Columbia University’s Committee on Global Thought. More on my academic work, publications, and background can be found at www.kiantajbakhsh.net.
My work brings together three worlds that are too often kept apart: serious scholarship, real-world political experience, and clear public analysis. I have spent years studying power, institutions, and political order as a scholar and teacher, but I have also lived politics directly — as a democracy and human rights advocate in Iran, a political prisoner in Tehran’s Evin Prison, and later under years of house arrest before being released as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
This Substack is where I bring those perspectives together.
My main focus is Iran and the wider Middle East: war, regional order, democratic struggle, authoritarian resilience, U.S.–Iran relations, and the larger shifts shaping global politics. I also write about urbanism, local governance, and the political life of cities, especially through the lens of New York and Tehran.
The newsletter currently includes two main recurring series:
Iran Crisis Notebook
Short, fast, analytical essays on Iran, war, regional geopolitics, and international affairs.
Tales of My Two Cities
Essays on urbanism, local governance, and the politics of everyday life in New York, Tehran, and beyond.
I try to write with clarity rather than cliché, and with argument rather than noise — grounded in history, institutions, evidence, and, where useful, larger theoretical and philosophical insight.
In addition to my academic work, I write for a wider public audience and comment regularly in the media. My essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and Project Syndicate, and my analysis has been featured on NBC, CNN, BBC, CBC, and NPR, among others.
If you are looking for serious but accessible analysis of Iran, geopolitics, democracy, and global affairs — with occasional returns to the politics of cities and local life — I hope you will subscribe and join me here.
— Kian Tajbakhsh
