Kian Tajbakhsh, Ph.D. (Columbia University, 1993), Presidential Fellow and Lecturer at Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought and Adjunct Professor of Urban Policy at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). An expert in International Relations, Global Governance, and Urban Policy, he has taught the core global governance requirement in the MA program on Global Thought since 2017. Additionally, since 2018 Tajbakhsh serves as the Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration , focusing on university-wide projects related to the challenges faced by forcibly displaced populations. Between 2016 and 2018, he held the position of Visiting (Full) Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia.

"Creating Local Democracy in Iran: State-Building and the Politics of Decentralization," was released by Cambridge University Press in 2022 has been endorsed by leading scholars as, “a deeply researched account of how contemporary politics in Iran actually works…opens a revealing window onto everyday politics in Iran” (Lisa Anderson/FOREIGN AFFAIRS). “Among the academic works on the obstacles to democracy in Iran since 1979… [this book is] by far the most thorough, the most empirical and the most innovative work" (Ervand Abrahamian).

Essays

“Getting Real About Iran” Foreign Affairs, March 2019.

Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts Poll: “Iran is the greatest threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East.” 

 “Their Fascism and Ours.” The New Republic. In Press (April 2024)

 “Iran Is Not a ‘Normal’ Country” The Atlantic, Feb 2, 2024

 “Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom movement one year after Mahsa Amini’s death: A Fragile Triumph” Public Seminar [by invitation] Sept 22, 2022

 “Iran’s First Feminist Uprising” Public Seminar [by invitation] (Almost 2,000 views) Oct 2022

 “Inside Iran’s Evin Prison: What I learned about the challenge of resisting a regime that locks up thousands of political prisoners.” The Atlantic, Nov 1, 2022

 Wall St. Journal, Saturday Essay [by invitation] - The Culture War Behind Iran’s Protests Nov 11, 2022

 “Why Iran’s Reformists Refuse to Boycott Elections” Sada: Middle East Analysis (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). June 15, 2021

 “Who Wants What from Iran Now? The Post-Nuclear Deal U.S. Policy Debate.” The Washington Quarterly 2018, 41:3

Democracy; State building; Local Government; Urbanism, City planning; International relations, foreign policy, ideology

Lecturer, Presidential Fellow, Columbia University