Dr Evaleila Pesaran

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.

Key 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).