The urgency of the Iranian water crisis increases every year. The Iranian agricultural sector is by far the biggest user of the vanishing water, yet it continues to be heavily subsidized. This...Show moreThe urgency of the Iranian water crisis increases every year. The Iranian agricultural sector is by far the biggest user of the vanishing water, yet it continues to be heavily subsidized. This paper first establishes a link between subsidies and water mismanagement and then continues to investigate the motivations and dilemmas that Iranian policymakers face in their decision to retain subsidies that promote the wasteful agricultural industry. With the input of experts in the field and from the region, this paper argues that these subsidies are a crucial pillar of Iran due to its nature as a neopatrimonial rentier state and that subsidy reform or even removal are difficultShow less
Since the 1979 revolution, the idea that the West has been involved in a conspiracy against Iran has become one of the most important national myths of the Islamic Republic. In recent years this...Show moreSince the 1979 revolution, the idea that the West has been involved in a conspiracy against Iran has become one of the most important national myths of the Islamic Republic. In recent years this national narrative has found new meaning as the “soft war”. A modern iteration of the myth of foreign conspiracy, it stipulates that Western powers seek to infiltrate the moral fabric of Iranian society through Western cultural products and media channels and by extending support to Iranian civil society. Since the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests the soft war has become one of the defining features of Iranian governmental discourse. The election protests relied to a large extent on digital communication and social media platforms to mobilize the opposition to the re-elected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013). The soft war narrative was the primary justification for the increasing control of the Iranian authorities over their country’s cybersphere which accompanied the regime’s crackdown on the 2009 demonstrations. While the topics of digital repression and the soft war during the terms of president Ahmadinejad have received their share of scholarly attention, a review their status under the current Iranian president of Hassan Rouhani is lacking. This thesis aims to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing how the soft war narrative has been used in Iranian governmental discourse to justify control of Iran’s media environment and in particular, control of Iran’s internet, during the tenure of president Rouhani as compared to during the Ahmadinejad era. Particular attention is paid to the legacy Western imperialism in Iran, factional politics in contemporary Iran and the influence of the country’s political economy on the Iranian state’s restrictions on internet freedom under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani.Show less
This thesis deals with the issue of the Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb Islands. These islands are disputed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, who currently occupies them, and the United Arab...Show moreThis thesis deals with the issue of the Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb Islands. These islands are disputed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, who currently occupies them, and the United Arab Emirates, who to this day claim the islands as theirs. The strategic significance of the islands is not to be underestimated, as they lay directly in the main shipping lanes through which a significant portion of the world’s oil is transported. This paper has looked at the historical events that shaped the situation today, with a focus on the period between independence of the United Arab Emirates and the mid-1990’s. This timeframe is further divided in three parts, the events surrounding independence, the period of upheaval attempted détente during the late 1970’s and 1980’s and finally the reescalation of the issue after the First Gulf War of 1991.Using the theory of offensive realism as devised by John Mearsheimer and the associated concepts of power balancing, buck passing, off shore balancing and the role of the off shore balancer the events during this period have been analysed to answer the question whether this theory can explain the absence of warfare between the U.A.E. and Iran. Even though at times the situation seemed to be heading for war, the simple discrepancy between the capabilities of the U.A.E. and Iran resulted in a carefully balanced status quo that has been maintained since 1971 thereby weakening the key offensive realist assumption that the offensive is always profitable.Show less
