Kian Tajbaksh, Senior Advisor at Global Centers Columbia University, will give a presentation on his new book, Creating Local Democracy in Iran: State Building and the Politics of Decentralization. Walter Nichols, Chair of Department of Urban Planning and Policy, UCI, will give a response.
Kian Tajbakhsh (Ph.D. Columbia 1993) is a Senior Advisor at Global Centers Columbia University. In this role, Dr. Tajbakhsh works on university-wide initiatives focused on global migration and is the Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration. He is also a Fellow with Columbia’s Committee on Global Thought where since 2017 he has taught the core course in the Global Thought MA program “Globalization and the Problems of World Order.” He is also a Professor of Urban Planning and Urban Studies at Columbia. He has written extensively and has been interviewed by major international media about the recent wave of Iran protests; his essay “Iran’s First Feminist Uprising” has been widely cited. He is a frequent commentator on Iran matters in media outlets including BBC World Service, NY Times, Wall St Journal, National Public Radio (NPR), Foreign Affairs, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. His book Creating Local Democracy In Iran: State Building and the Politics of Decentralization was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. He is currently working on a semi-autobiographical study of US-Iran relations and the failure of Western democracy promotion efforts during the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Sponsored by the Howard Baskerville Endowment and the Departments of Comparative Literature and Urban Planning and Policy