The Mojahedin Khalq Organisation is an Iranian political party that helped Khomeini's religious sect in Iran bring about the Islamic revolution of 1979. This book provides a history of the Organization and its members, and addresses its relationship with western and international powers, most specifically the United States.
Suitable for contemporary security scholars, and those involved in political/military policy, this title offers terminology intends to clarify scholarly understanding of proxy warfare, a framework for understanding why states seek to use proxies in order to fulfil strategic objectives.
Female terrorists are a rare phenomenon. Less than ten terrorist organizations throughout the world have women members. These terrorist groups are either Marxist (atheist) or Jihadist in their ideologies. Sexual Jihad: The Role of Islam in Female Terrorism ascertains, “What is the role of Islam in female terrorism?” It explores the roles of women in eight jihadist case studies including: Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Boko Haram, the Chechen Separatists, HAMAS, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Qaeda. Primary sources and secondary sources are used, including research conducted on Palestinian women in Israeli prisons who have been convicted of terrorism. It is argued that are three roles for women in Jihadist terrorism: the disposable, the domestic, and the secretary. The theory posited in this book is that the roles of women in terrorist groups are similar to their cultural/religious roles in society.
Drawing on contemporary issues ranging from globalization and neoliberalism to the environment, this essential textbook - ideal for course use - encourages readers to question the limits of the law in its present state in order to develop fairer systems at the local, national, and global levels.
Upheavals in the Middle East: The Theory and Practice of a Revolution engages with some of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East—revolutions and social protests. The book offers theoretical paradigms that suit the Middle East’s conditions—culturally, religiously and historically. It deals with seventeen case studies from a range of Muslim and Arab states and provides a theoretical framework to study other situations all over the world, including cases from the recent Arab Spring. Revolution, as political action, can occur in all societies, but in recent years it has appeared most frequently in the Middle East. Will this trend continue? What makes the Middle Eastern revolution unique and surprising? This book seeks to answer these questions, placing side by side those cases that were successful and those that were doomed to fail.
In film studies, Iranian films are kept at a distance, as 'other,' different, and exotic. In reponse, this book takes these films as philosophically relevant and innovative. Each chapter of this book is devoted to analyzing a single film, and each chapter focuses on one philosopher and one particular aesthetic question.
Based on extensive interviews and oral histories as well as archival sources, this book challenges the dominant masculine theorizations of state-making in post-revolutionary Iran. Offering a comprehensive study on citizenship formation, it reveals the centrality of non-elite women's participation in the process of citizenship formation.
Identities in Crisis in Iran aims at finding answers to the questions about the puzzling character of the Iranian identity. The contributors acknowledge that identity, especially when it is faced with fundamental tensions as in the case of Iran, is a phenomenon that is constantly developing via factors involving the private self and common social components. This book addresses the tension many Iranian people face that lie between the Persian culture and the Shi’a religion, women versus men, and culture versus traditions.
"Steven R. Ward has written an introduction to Iran's shadowy Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS). MOIS is Iran's primary intelligence agency and focuses on tracking and countering domestic dissent and foreign-inspired sedition. Its organizational ethos emphasizes combating foreign influence and covert action to protect national identity and solidarity, adding the cultural realm to its intelligence mission. The ministry's checkered record of effective intelligence operations includes a history of assassinations and human rights abuses. Iran established the MOIS under the executive branch for accountability to the law and subordination to its system of elected and unelected rulers. MOIS missions overlap with other parts of Iran's expansive security apparatus, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which often overshadows the Ministry of Intelligence. Nonetheless, the ministry maintains a leading role in coordinating the multiple security organizations' activities and helps balance the system by serving as a check on IRGC power. This accessible book is intended for students of intelligence studies, national security practitioners, and general readers"--
'A first-rate study that not only goes far in explaining the key events of the last decade but also implicitly substantiates the classic Crane Brinton analysis.'Bernard Weiss, History: Review of New Books