Iran, Russia, Turkey: The Anti-Democracies of the 21st Century

Professor Hamit Bozarslan will discuss these three regimes. They are not the only anti-democratic ones that exists in the contemporary world, but they share some features that one cannot easily find elsewhere such as:

• the assumption that the nation has a peculiar ontology, constantly threatened by the “West”, an enemy which always aimed at its alteration, if not total annihilation.
• that it is charged by History with the task of bringing justice and harmony to the world under its paternalistic and exclusive leadership.
• that the nation as incarnated, not only in its present time, but also in its past and its future, by the Leader.

Hamit Bozarslan teaches at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, France. His research interests cover the Kurdish question, historical and political sociology of the Middle East, and formation of anti-democratic regimes in the 20th and 21st Centuries. He has authored, namely, L’anti-démocratie au 21e siècle: Ira, Russie, Turquie (Paris, 2021) and Le Temps des monstres. Monde arabe 2011-2021 (Paris, 2022). This talk is sponsored by the Middle East Studies Program and cosponsored by the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia. Watch the recording here