- Room 1, 21 Portland Villas, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
- shabnam.holliday@plymouth.ac.uk
Profiles
Dr Shabnam Holliday
Associate Professor in International Relations
School of Law, Criminology and Government (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business)
Shabnam can be contacted through arrangement with our Press Office, to speak to the media on these areas of expertise.
- Politics
- Iran
- International politics
- Nationalism
Email publicrelations@plymouth.ac.uk to enquire.
Qualifications
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- PhD Discourses and counter-discourses of Iranian national identity during Khatami's presidency (1997-2005), University of Exeter
- MA in Middle East Politics, University of Exeter
- 1st Class BA (Hons) in Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter
Professional membership
- British Society for Middle Eastern Studies
- British Institute of Persian Studies
- British International Studies Association
Roles on external bodies
- Director Modern Research Project, 'Iran and the International', British Istitute of Persian Studies (British Academy)
- Member of the Research Committee, British Istitute of Persian Studies (British Academy)
Key publications
2016 'Divided we stand? The heterogeneous political identities of Iran's 2009-2010 uprisings' Political Identities and Popular Uprisings in the Middle East London Rowman and Littlefield International Publisher Site
2019 'Populism, the international and methodological nationalism: global order and the Iran-Israel nexus' Political Studies , DOI Open access
2016 'The legacy of subalternity and Gramsci's national-popular: populist discourse in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran' THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 37, (5) 917-933 , DOI Open access
Teaching interests
I currently teach and lead 3 modules:
- Stage 1, Discovering World Politics. This is a team-taught module that introduces stage 1 students to the concep of power through diffeernt case studies, topics and approaches. This includes the 'Arab Spring'; Natural resources and power in Africa; the relationship between legitimacy, power and authority; plastic and ocean governance; Covid-19 and security; protests globally and power as resitance; and Covid-19 and international politics.
- Stage 3, The Politics and International Relations of the Middle East. This module examines confict and rivalry in the MIddle East by highlighting the intereconnection between domestic and international politics, and highlighting the importance of historica context.
- MA, The International Relations of the MIddle East: A critical approach. This module examines international relations in the region by exploring the somestic and international dynamics of popular uprisings in the Middle East, icluding the 'Arab Spring'.
PhD supervision
I am interested in supervising students in the following areas:
- Iranian foreign policy and politics, including nationalism and the role of political identity
- Political change and transformation in the MENA region
- Populism in the Global South
- World order and the Global South
Staff serving as external examiners
Open University, Undergraduate programmes, POLIS
Research interests
Shabnam is Associate Professor in International Relations. She joined the University of Plymouth on completing her PhD on discourses of Iranian national identity at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. Her publications include Defining Iran: Politics of Resistance (Routledge, 2011) and the edited volume, with Phil Leech, Political Identities and Popular Uprisings in the Middle East (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016).
In addition to her research on Iranian politics and international relations, Shabnam has been working on populism. This includes her article, Populism, the international and methodological nationalism: global order and the Iran-Israel nexus, Political Studies (2020), which puts forward a new framework for looking at populism in International Relations.
Shabnam has three areas of research interest: the relationship between domestic and international politics in relation to populism; the role of ideas in politics in the Global South; the construction of global order and its relationship with revolution and political transformation. These research interests are reflected in ongoing research projects: Iran and global order; and Iran and the international.
Shabnam is the current Director of the British Institute of Persia’s Modern Research Project. In addition to being on BIPS’ research committee. Her research project is entitled 'Iran and the international' and explores the relationship between ideas and intellectual history and the international; and Iran's international relations.
Grants & contracts
- June 2007 British Institute of Persian Studies: 6 month Residential Post-doc in Tehran to research Iranian national identity
- June 2005 British Institute of Persian Studies Research Grant
- June 2005 Prince al-Waleed Award
Key publications
2016 'Divided we stand? The heterogeneous political identities of Iran's 2009-2010 uprisings' Political Identities and Popular Uprisings in the Middle East London Rowman and Littlefield International Publisher Site
2019 'Populism, the international and methodological nationalism: global order and the Iran-Israel nexus' Political Studies , DOI Open access
2016 'The legacy of subalternity and Gramsci's national-popular: populist discourse in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran' THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 37, (5) 917-933 , DOI Open access
Key publications are highlighted
Journals
Articles
2019 'Populism, the international and methodological nationalism: global order and the Iran-Israel nexus' Political Studies , DOI Open access
2016 'The legacy of subalternity and Gramsci's national-popular: populist discourse in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran' THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 37, (5) 917-933 , DOI Open access
2010 'Khatami’s Islamist-Iranian discourse of national identity: A discourse of resistance' British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 37, (1) 1-13 , DOI
2007 'The politicisation of culture and the contestation of Iranian national identity in Khatami’s Iran' Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 7, 1, 27-44 Publisher Site , DOI
Books
Holliday SJ; Leech P 2016 Political Identities and Popular Uprisings in the Middle East. London Rowman and Littlefield International Publisher Site
Chapters
2016 'Divided we stand? The heterogeneous political identities of Iran's 2009-2010 uprisings' Political Identities and Popular Uprisings in the Middle East London Rowman and Littlefield International Publisher Site
2014 'Iran's Own Uprising and the Arab Spring' in Sadiki L Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring Routledge , DOI
2011 'Conclusion' in Pace M Europe, the USA and Political Islam Basingstoke Palgrave MacMillan 192-204 Publisher Site
2011 'Democratization in Iran: A role for the EU?' in Pace M Europe, the USA and Political Islam: Strategies for Engagement Basingstoke Palgrave MacMillan 58-78 Publisher Site
2011 'Democratization in Iran: A Role for the EU?' Europe, the USA and Political Islam Palgrave Macmillan UK 58-78 , DOI
2007 'Cities of the Middle East and North Africa' in Dumper M; Stanley BE Cities of the Middle East and North Africa Santa Barbara, CA Abc-clio Publisher Site
2007 'Cities of the Middle East and North Africa' in Dumper M; Stanley BE Cities of the Middle East and North Africa Santa Barbara, CA Abc-clio Publisher Site
Other Publications
2019 Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran. By Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. 392p. $60.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. Cambridge University Press , DOI