Podcast
Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow and Boston College Associate Professor Ali Kadivar joins Terms of Engagement hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to discuss the prospects for democracy in Iran now that the country is at war with the U.S. and Israel.
The United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, killing the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top officials in an airstrike on his presidential compound. But regime decapitation isn’t the same as regime change, which has been one of the Trump Administration’s stated goals for the conflict.
But even if the regime collapses, Boston College Associate Professor and current Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow Ali Kadivar says the prospects for a near-term democratic future for Iran are dim. The same is true if the regime survives, he says. “Neither trajectory is likely to produce democratic consolidation,” he wrote in a recent essay titled: “The Fantasy of Liberation by War.” Kadivar, who has written in recent months about strategies the Iranian pro-democracy movement might successfully deploy, talks to hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer about how the war has changed the political equation in Tehran.
Coming soon!
Archon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance with a focus on public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals. He received two S.B.s — in philosophy and physics — and his Ph.D. in political science from MIT.
Stephen Richer is the former elected Maricopa County Recorder, responsible for voter registration, early voting administration, and public recordings in Maricopa County, Arizona, the fourth largest county in the United States. Prior to being an elected official, Stephen worked at several public policy think tanks and as a business transactions attorney. Stephen received his J.D. and M.A. from The University of Chicago and his B.A. from Tulane University.
Stephen has been broadly recognized for his work in elections and American Democracy. In 2021, the Arizona Republic named Stephen “Arizonan of the Year.” In 2022, the Maricopa Bar Association awarded Stephen “Public Law Attorney of the Year.” In 2023, Stephen won “Leader of the Year” from the Arizona Capitol Times. And in 2024, Time Magazine named Stephen a “Defender of Democracy.”
The views expressed on this show are those of the hosts alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.
Coming soon!
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