Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh
Biographic Data
| ID | 353175 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cyrus Ernesto |
| FAMILY NAME | Zirakzadeh |
| SIGNATURE | ZIRAKZADEH C E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Connecticut |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Two Ways of Being a Critical Political Scientist
Encouraging Vernacular Democracy
Today, some scholars use the term “dialogical democracy” to denote a highly participatory, egalitarian, and pragmatic form of politics that occurs when people with different beliefs and social backgrounds meet, propound, and launch collective actions through open disagreements, rebuttals, negotiations, and counterproposals. During the long process of forging a consensus, the participants treat each other’s rights to speak, question, disagree, and…
The Bigot: Why Prejudice Persists
Published in large font with more than normal space between lines, The Bigot looks like a speedy read. It is, in fact, a complex set of reflections by Stephen Eric Bronner on challenges to progress
Leaping Ahead
Next article FreeEditor’s NoteLeaping AheadCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreI chose the title of this issue of Polity for two reasons. First, this is the last issue that I will be editing. So, writing the introduction is bittersweet, even as …
Political Conception
Next article FreeEditor’s NotePolitical ConceptionCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIndividuals and groups, troubled by the ways that their community is run, sometimes think about resetting their system of government. Occasionally, they will a…
Entering the System
Next article FreeEditor’s NoteEntering the SystemCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJoining a political order is seldom a straightforward process. More commonly, it is a prolonged struggle for most of the parties involved. Even in self-proclaim…
The Unseen
Not all forms of political invisibility arise from the exclusionary predilections of rulers or from gradual changes in metaphysical assumptions. There is also intentional concealment, as Daniel Arioli notes in his comparative study of two eminent Islamic medieval philosophers, Alfarabi and Ibn Sina. Alfarabi argued that a virtuous city promotes happiness. Moreover, the best available way to organize politics (broadly understood to include religio…
Unity and Division
A symposium on partisan and ideological polarization in United States concludes this issue of Polity. The guest editor, Jeff Ladewig, invited half a dozen specialists on American politics to compose original thought pieces on contemporary partisan tensions. Ladewig, in his introduction, recalls the famous 1950 report by an American Political Science Association committee on political parties, in which a group of eminent scholars, led by E.E. Scha…
Elusive Equality
Like the contributions by Majic and Klausen, the third research article argues that well-intentioned efforts to achieve equality can inadvertently cause equality to slip away. Richard Avramenko and Robert Gingerich analyze Alexis de Tocqueville’s nightmarish study of penitentiaries in nineteenth-century America. At the time, the prisons were experiments in social engineering. They were intended to convert the spirit of criminals and generate mora…
Constructing Boundaries
Next article FreeEditor's NoteConstructing BoundariesCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMorePolitics involves the collective construction, questioning, and reconstruction of boundaries. They come in all sizes, shapes, thicknesses, and degrees of pe…
For What Do We Cheer? Nietzsche, Moral Stands, and Social Movement Research
This article explores moral stances in social movement research. The article first identifies three moral orientations (and their corresponding world views) that have become common since the end of the Cold War. The second section uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s praise and criticism of three types of “useful history” to clarify the benefits and costs of each moral orientation. The article closes with thoughts about the relevance of Nietzsche’s notion …
Forgotten Virtues
Next article FreeEditor's NoteForgotten VirtuesCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn Proverbs 29:18, we learn that “Where there is no vision the people perish.” Scholars at times interpret “vision” as referring to a moral order that inspires, u…
Behind the Curtain
Like Lowndes, Daniel Skinner and Steven Pludwin maintain that politics in America are, for all the discussion of Lockean principles and consensus, defined by quotidian, linguistic practices that public officials never discuss. And, Skinner and Pludwin suggest, officials might be silent about their subtle exercise of power over citizens’ imaginations for good reason. Skinner and Pludwin, who believe that politics today in the United States is pola…
Democracy: A Perilous Project
Next article FreeEditor's NoteDemocracy: A Perilous Project?Cyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreDuring Athens’ golden age, the participation of non-noble citizens in deliberations about the interests and policies of the city–state generated cons…
Influencing Citizens’ Perceptions
Next article FreeEditor's NoteInfluencing Citizens’ PerceptionsCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAs I compose this introduction during the eve of the U.S. presidential election, I cannot help but think about the various ways in which corporati…
Confronting the Past
Next article FreeEditor's NoteConfronting the PastCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreWelcome to the 44th volume of Polity. The goal of the journal is to publish original research that will interest political scientists in all fields of our disc…
Welcome to Our Symposia
Next article FreeEditor's NoteWelcome to Our SymposiaCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreWith this issue, Polity launches a new intellectual venture: symposia. These are collections of essays by scholars with different perspectives on a particul…
Discord and Adaptation
Conflicts Over Identity
The final article reviews recent books on the American presidency. Curt Nichols contends that the study of presidential politics has evolved over the past half century from the analysis of the tactics by which individual presidents first amass and then dispense power, to the analysis of how presidents try to implement broad political-economic visions. Nichols applauds scholars’ attention to presidents’ roles in formulating, realizing, and on occa…
Fresh Perspectives on Change
The first article explores how political leaders in democratic states successfully change the ideological formulas that legitimize their regime. Using the classic comparative-politics method of paired-case analysis (and creatively comparing South African and United States party politics), Shamira Gelbman and Jesse Rhodes advance a theory of regime change that is less mechanical and deterministic than some scholars propose, but that also avoids a …
Democracy and Dissatisfaction
Next article FreeEditor's NoteDemocracy and DissatisfactionCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAcross the globe, common citizens sign petitions, march through city streets, occupy buildings, support general strikes, and, if they can vote, elect …
Neoliberalism and Its Social-Movement Foes
Journal Article Neoliberalism and Its Social-Movement Foes Get access Social Movements for Global Democracy. By Smith Jackie. MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 299 pp., $25.00 paperback (ISBN-10: 0-8018-8744-5). Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Review, Volume 11, Issue 3…
Preparing to Fight the Good Fight: Advice from Two Associate Deans to Faculty Friends
In our professional work, many of us are involved in university service and politics and some of us enter administrative positions. As political scientists who became associate deans of colleges of liberal arts and sciences, our observations from our administrative perches and our disciplinary knowledge have provided insights on how faculty can protect and promote academic values
Rise of the Right: Exploring Conservative Movements in the United States
Crossing Frontiers: Theoretical Innovations in the Study of Social Movements
For better or worse, scholars who write about the origins, activities, and consequences of social movements often talk past each other. Babel occurs partly because social movement scholars are trained in different disciplines with dissimilar analytic concepts, presumptions about relevance, and methodological techniques. In addition, one finds in every discipline competing (if not clashing) intellectual currents and political orientations, which c…
From Revolutionary Dreams to Organizational Fragmentation: Disputes over Violence within ETA and Sendero Luminoso
This article examines the evolution of ETA and Shining Path and the leaders' early theoretical justifications for armed action and the views of dissenters. Although both organizations emerged under similar circumstances, members of each differed in how they thought about violent politics. This resulted in different types and amounts of violence. Leaders revised their thinking amid constitutional change, fierce government repression and the entran…
Economic Changes and Surges in Micro-Nationalist Voting in Scotland and the Basque Region of Spain
I During the 1970s, residents in Scotland and the Basque region of Spain began to vote in large numbers for nationalist candidates. Almost overnight the Scottish National Party and a collection of three Basque parties became important electoral forces, expanding their shares in general elections by more than 15 percent of all ballots cast (see Tables 1 and 2
On Movement Frames and Negotiated Identities: The Case of Poland's First Solidarity Congress
How do participants in a social movement come to agree on goals and strategies? Recent scholarship has moved in two theoretical directions. Some writers focus on movement leaders and their efforts to excite and attract potential supporters by formulating a vision that conveys optimism and moral outrage, yet is congruent with long-standing popular beliefs. Other writers focus far less on leaders and their frames and insist, instead, that movements…
John Steinbeck on the Political Capacities of Everyday Folk: Moms, Reds, and Ma Joad's Revolt
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath-one of the most widely read books in U.S. history-argues that the emergence of corporate capitalism led to the starvation and homelessness of many thousands of citizens, as well as to the suspension of their political rights of assembly and speech. Steinbeck in addition describes what he considers to be the capacities of American folk to redirect history, and predicts the evolution of a more collectively orien…
Encouraging Vernacular Democracy
Today, some scholars use the term “dialogical democracy” to denote a highly participatory, egalitarian, and pragmatic form of politics that occurs when people with different beliefs and social backgrounds meet, propound, and launch collective actions through open disagreements, rebuttals, negotiations, and counterproposals. During the long process of forging a consensus, the participants treat each other’s rights to speak, question, disagree, and…
Constructing Boundaries
Next article FreeEditor's NoteConstructing BoundariesCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMorePolitics involves the collective construction, questioning, and reconstruction of boundaries. They come in all sizes, shapes, thicknesses, and degrees of pe…
Crossing Frontiers: Theoretical Innovations in the Study of Social Movements
For better or worse, scholars who write about the origins, activities, and consequences of social movements often talk past each other. Babel occurs partly because social movement scholars are trained in different disciplines with dissimilar analytic concepts, presumptions about relevance, and methodological techniques. In addition, one finds in every discipline competing (if not clashing) intellectual currents and political orientations, which c…
Political Prophecy in Contemporary American Literature: The Left-Conservative Vision of Norman Mailer
Popular and prize-winning writer Norman Mailer has advanced a view of American politics and society that he calls “left conservatism.” This paper analyzes elements of Mailer's critique and describes how the parts fit together. Special attention is given to his interpretation of economic history and social psychology, his vision of moral health that he associates with the term “hipster,” and his fear of a new political mentality in the United Stat…
Traditions of protest and the high‐school student movements in Spain and France in 1986–87
This article explores the social circumstances that nurture social movements in advanced capitalist societies by examining the Spanish and French high‐school student movements of 1986–87. Attention is given to the influence of unemployment, outside organisers, the political education of community leaders, and past protests that provided examples for movement participants. The article proposes that future research on European social movements focu…
Economic Changes and Surges in Micro-Nationalist Voting in Scotland and the Basque Region of Spain
I During the 1970s, residents in Scotland and the Basque region of Spain began to vote in large numbers for nationalist candidates. Almost overnight the Scottish National Party and a collection of three Basque parties became important electoral forces, expanding their shares in general elections by more than 15 percent of all ballots cast (see Tables 1 and 2
A Rebellious People: Basques, Protests, and Politics
In this scholarly work, Zirakzadeh argues that there is a calculated reasoning behind ETA's political violence that is often overlooked by researchers. His book is a comprehensive account of the Basque region's grassroots politics
A Rebellious People: Basques, Protests, and Politics
From Revolutionary Dreams to Organizational Fragmentation: Disputes over Violence within ETA and Sendero Luminoso
This article examines the evolution of ETA and Shining Path and the leaders' early theoretical justifications for armed action and the views of dissenters. Although both organizations emerged under similar circumstances, members of each differed in how they thought about violent politics. This resulted in different types and amounts of violence. Leaders revised their thinking amid constitutional change, fierce government repression and the entran…
John Steinbeck on the Political Capacities of Everyday Folk: Moms, Reds, and Ma Joad's Revolt
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath-one of the most widely read books in U.S. history-argues that the emergence of corporate capitalism led to the starvation and homelessness of many thousands of citizens, as well as to the suspension of their political rights of assembly and speech. Steinbeck in addition describes what he considers to be the capacities of American folk to redirect history, and predicts the evolution of a more collectively orien…
Social Movements in Politics: A Comparative Study
In this book, Zirakzadeh examines different types of social movements, from the Greens in Germany to the Shining Path in Peru. The book concludes with a juxtaposition of the three major theoretical ap
On Movement Frames and Negotiated Identities: The Case of Poland's First Solidarity Congress
How do participants in a social movement come to agree on goals and strategies? Recent scholarship has moved in two theoretical directions. Some writers focus on movement leaders and their efforts to excite and attract potential supporters by formulating a vision that conveys optimism and moral outrage, yet is congruent with long-standing popular beliefs. Other writers focus far less on leaders and their frames and insist, instead, that movements…
Political Prophecy in Contemporary American Literature: The Left-Conservative Vision of Norman Mailer
Popular and prize-winning writer Norman Mailer has advanced a view of American politics and society that he calls “left conservatism.” This paper analyzes elements of Mailer's critique and describes how the parts fit together. Special attention is given to his interpretation of economic history and social psychology, his vision of moral health that he associates with the term “hipster,” and his fear of a new political mentality in the United Stat…
Crossing Frontiers: Theoretical Innovations in the Study of Social Movements
For better or worse, scholars who write about the origins, activities, and consequences of social movements often talk past each other. Babel occurs partly because social movement scholars are trained in different disciplines with dissimilar analytic concepts, presumptions about relevance, and methodological techniques. In addition, one finds in every discipline competing (if not clashing) intellectual currents and political orientations, which c…
Neoliberalism and Its Social-Movement Foes
Journal Article Neoliberalism and Its Social-Movement Foes Get access Social Movements for Global Democracy. By Smith Jackie. MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 299 pp., $25.00 paperback (ISBN-10: 0-8018-8744-5). Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Review, Volume 11, Issue 3…
Preparing to Fight the Good Fight: Advice from Two Associate Deans to Faculty Friends
In our professional work, many of us are involved in university service and politics and some of us enter administrative positions. As political scientists who became associate deans of colleges of liberal arts and sciences, our observations from our administrative perches and our disciplinary knowledge have provided insights on how faculty can protect and promote academic values
Rise of the Right: Exploring Conservative Movements in the United States
Conflicts Over Identity
The final article reviews recent books on the American presidency. Curt Nichols contends that the study of presidential politics has evolved over the past half century from the analysis of the tactics by which individual presidents first amass and then dispense power, to the analysis of how presidents try to implement broad political-economic visions. Nichols applauds scholars’ attention to presidents’ roles in formulating, realizing, and on occa…
Fresh Perspectives on Change
The first article explores how political leaders in democratic states successfully change the ideological formulas that legitimize their regime. Using the classic comparative-politics method of paired-case analysis (and creatively comparing South African and United States party politics), Shamira Gelbman and Jesse Rhodes advance a theory of regime change that is less mechanical and deterministic than some scholars propose, but that also avoids a …
Democracy and Dissatisfaction
Next article FreeEditor's NoteDemocracy and DissatisfactionCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAcross the globe, common citizens sign petitions, march through city streets, occupy buildings, support general strikes, and, if they can vote, elect …
Confronting the Past
Next article FreeEditor's NoteConfronting the PastCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreWelcome to the 44th volume of Polity. The goal of the journal is to publish original research that will interest political scientists in all fields of our disc…
Welcome to Our Symposia
Next article FreeEditor's NoteWelcome to Our SymposiaCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreWith this issue, Polity launches a new intellectual venture: symposia. These are collections of essays by scholars with different perspectives on a particul…
Discord and Adaptation
For What Do We Cheer? Nietzsche, Moral Stands, and Social Movement Research
This article explores moral stances in social movement research. The article first identifies three moral orientations (and their corresponding world views) that have become common since the end of the Cold War. The second section uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s praise and criticism of three types of “useful history” to clarify the benefits and costs of each moral orientation. The article closes with thoughts about the relevance of Nietzsche’s notion …
Forgotten Virtues
Next article FreeEditor's NoteForgotten VirtuesCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn Proverbs 29:18, we learn that “Where there is no vision the people perish.” Scholars at times interpret “vision” as referring to a moral order that inspires, u…
Behind the Curtain
Like Lowndes, Daniel Skinner and Steven Pludwin maintain that politics in America are, for all the discussion of Lockean principles and consensus, defined by quotidian, linguistic practices that public officials never discuss. And, Skinner and Pludwin suggest, officials might be silent about their subtle exercise of power over citizens’ imaginations for good reason. Skinner and Pludwin, who believe that politics today in the United States is pola…
Democracy: A Perilous Project
Next article FreeEditor's NoteDemocracy: A Perilous Project?Cyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreDuring Athens’ golden age, the participation of non-noble citizens in deliberations about the interests and policies of the city–state generated cons…
Influencing Citizens’ Perceptions
Next article FreeEditor's NoteInfluencing Citizens’ PerceptionsCyrus Ernesto ZirakzadehCyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAs I compose this introduction during the eve of the U.S. presidential election, I cannot help but think about the various ways in which corporati…
The Unseen
Not all forms of political invisibility arise from the exclusionary predilections of rulers or from gradual changes in metaphysical assumptions. There is also intentional concealment, as Daniel Arioli notes in his comparative study of two eminent Islamic medieval philosophers, Alfarabi and Ibn Sina. Alfarabi argued that a virtuous city promotes happiness. Moreover, the best available way to organize politics (broadly understood to include religio…
Political science (34 works) · Law (33 works) · Law (30 works) · Politics (30 works) · Sociology (29 works) · Political economy (13 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Polity (9 works) · Aesthetics (7 works)