professorsheehan

#Media / #News / #Scholarship / #Inquiries

2014 World Congress of Middle East Studies / Strategies for Change in the Middle East: Clarifying the Contested Concept of Regime Change from Within / Panel on Democracy and Reform in Iran from a Historical Perspective / August 18-22, 2014 / Middle East Technical University (METU)

Dr. Ivan Sascha Sheehan has been invited to Ankara, Turkey to present at the 2014 World Congress of Middle East Studies (WOCMES) between August 18-22, 2014. The symposium will be held at Middle East Technical University (METU), one of Turkey’s leading universities. Dr. Sheehan is scheduled to present a paper titled Strategies for Change in the Middle East: Clarifying the Contested Concept of Regime Change from Within.

Presentation Abstract: The term “regime change from within” has become increasingly popular in opposition and policy discourse, especially in relation to the Islamic Republic of Iran. It has also begun entering the academic literature. But what does it mean? Despite its increasing use “regime change from within” is rarely defined and scant scholarly attention to date has been paid to defining it. This is problematic since, as an “umbrella concept,” the term can be stretched to include a wide variety of discrepant processes. In fact, “regime change from within” has been used as a holder for democracy promotion efforts within a country that start both inside and outside a country, as well as indigenous efforts that exclude outside support, to highlight the need for radical change, and more vaguely to call for “continuous” change or reform. This paper argues that coherent strategic policy demands better articulation of the meaning of the term. As a first step, the paper traces the evolution of use of the term “regime change from within,” tries to unpack its components, and develops a preliminary framework that partitions the concept into ends (vision) and means (strategy) to assess its utility for policy.

Stay tuned for two forthcoming articles by Dr. Sheehan:

SHEEHAN: What is “Regime Change from Within?” Unpacking the Concept in the Context of Iran | Digest of Middle East Studies | Fall 2014

SHEEHAN: Balancing Ends, Ways, and Means: The Case for Reviving Support for “Regime Change from Within” in Iran | Under Review

More on Dr. Sheehan’s research can be found at the below links.

 / #About / #News / #Scholarship /

This entry was posted on June 19, 2014 at 5:56 PM and is filed under analysis, ankara, arak, ashraf, assad, baghdad, ballistic missiles, brussels, chemical weapons, CIA, clinton, college of public affairs, conflict resolution, congress, courses, covert, crimes against humanity, debate, delisting, democracy, digest of middle east studies, diplomacy, dissident, DOMES, education, european union, evidence-based, fordow, foreign policy, foreign policy analysis, global, hostages, human rights, human security, IAEA, intelligence, international relations, international security studies, iran, iraq, kerry, maliki, media, MEK, metu, MI6, middle east, middle east dialogue, military, mossad, natanz, NCRI, negotiation, nuclear, obama, P5+1, paris, PMOI, policy, policy studies organization, politics, protest, qum, rajavi, regime change, research, rhetoric, sanctions, scholarly, security studies, sheehan, social science, state department, syria, tanter, tehran, terror tagging, terrorism, threat, turkey, united kingdom, university of baltimore, unrest, war, weapons, wocmes, zarif. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.