Biography
Evaleila is a scholar of the politics of power and resistance in modern Iran. Her work focusses on three main strands: (1) ideas of economic independence; (2) the theory and practice of anti-imperialism; and (3) state-society relations and state resilience.
Evaleila is also a member of the Governing Council of the British Institute for Persian Studies (BIPS) at the British Academy, and she is Area Editor for the topic of "Politics and Activism" in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Gender and Women’s History.
Research
My research is interdisciplinary and sits at the intersection between political economy, political thought, and IR. Through exploring the politics of domination and resistance in modern Iran, my work is attentive to questions of sovereignty and economic independence, colonialism and anti-imperialism, state-society relations, gender and women's activism, and authoritarian resilience.
Publications
Book
Iran’s Struggle for Economic Independence: Reform and Counter-Reform in the Post-Revolutionary Era. Routledge, 2011. Translated into Arabic and Persian.
Articles
"Outside In? Iran’s Mixed Responses to International Stigmatisation." Iranian Studies, forthcoming.
"Imperial power, anti-imperial resistance, and the shaping of international hierarchies: Lessons from 1930s Persia." Review of International Studies 50, no. 4 (2024): 760-776.
"Towards an Anti-Western Stance: The Economic Discourse of Iran’s 1979 Revolution." Iranian Studies 41, no. 5 (2008): 693-718.
Book chapters
"Digital Entrepreneurs and State Resilience under Sanctions in Iran." In Power, Resistance, Ideology and the State: Charles Tripp and the Comparative Politics of the Middle East, edited by Toby Dodge, Daniel Neep and Ali M. Ansari (Gingko, 2025).
"Ideals, Interests, and Economic Liberalization in the Islamic Republic of Iran." In Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging Economic, Social and Political Perceptions, edited by Eric Hooglund and Leif Stenberg (Routledge, 2012).
"Challenges Facing the Iranian Economy." In Iran: A Revolutionary Republic in Transition, edited by Rouzbeh Parsi (EU Institute for Security Studies, 2012).
Teaching and Supervisions
Undergraduate teaching
I supervise on a range of papers, including POL1: The Modern State and its Alternatives, POL2: International Conflict, Order and Justice, POL4: Comparative Politics, POL9: Conceptual Issues in Politics and International Relations, POL12: The Politics of the Middle East, and POL5/19: Themes and Issues in Politics and International Relations.
Postgraduate teaching
I teach a module for the MPhil in Politics and International Studies: Gender and Politics in the Middle East.
