Social Science Research Council

Under an agreement with SSRC, the Center for International Studies at MIT is convening two workshops to explore democratic development, reform, and the nuclear issue in Iran. Executive Director John Tirman (former co-director of SSRC’s Program on Global Security & Cooperation) is organizing the workshop with Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, former parliamentarian in Iran who is now at the Kennedy School of Government. About 16 Iranian intellectuals, four from Iran and three from Europe and the remainder resident in the United States, met recently at MIT to discuss reform and other related issues. The purpose of the workshop was to gather first hand accounts of the state of political reform and civil society in Iran. International pressure on the nuclear issue was also addressed. A second workshop, with higher participation from Iran, is tentatively scheduled for spring in Saudi Arabia. The goal is to understand more thoroughly the trajectory of reform politics and their effect on issues of international concern. The current work is supported by grants from the Ploughshares Fund and the Compton Foundation.