This paper seeks an explanation for the resilience of the Syrian authoritarian regime under Hafez and Bashar Al-Asad. It will be argued that this resilience is to a relevant extent caused by the fact that the regime's "material" as well as "ideational" forms of power share a common element, if...

The 1979 Iranian Revolution undoubtedly belongs to the "great" revolutions of modern times - all of which were characterized by universalistic efforts and the claim to have set new social, political and cultural norms with global validity. In this sense, the Iranian revolutionaries felt the...

This paper seeks to explain how Iran's regime persisted in the face of international sanctions during Mahmud Ahmadinejad's presidency, from 2005 to 2013. It reconstructs the interplay between the intensifying UNSC, US and EU sanctions and the targeted regime's strategies to advance the nuclear...