Global and International Studies Building, 1011
On sabbatical leave for the 2024-2025 academic year.
- Zahedi Family Fellow, Program in Iranian Studies, Stanford University (Fall 2024)
- Visiting Fellow, Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania (Spring 2025)
Research Summary
Hussein "Huss" Banai is an Associate Professor of International Studies in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he is also faculty affiliate in the departments of Political Science, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Central Eurasian Studies. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Center for International Studies at MIT.
Banai's research interests lie at the intersection of political thought and international relations, with a special focus on topics in democratic theory, non-Western liberal thought, diplomatic history and theory, US-Iran relations, and Iran’s political development. He has published on these topics in academic, policy, and popular periodicals. He is the author of Hidden Liberalism: Burdened Visions of Progress in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2020); co-author of two volumes on US-Iran relations: Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) and Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012); and co-editor of Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Cosmopolitan Challenges (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023).
Banai is the co-editor of International Studies Review, the flagship review journal of the International Studies Association. From 2018 to 2020, he served as an associate editor (for Social Sciences) of Iranian Studies; he was a deputy editor at Millenium: Journal of International Studies in 2004-2005. In addition to his scholarly work, he frequently comments on Iran-related issues in the media. His interviews and comments on current events have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Voice of America, Time, NPR, NBC News Online, CNN Online, BBC News, BBC Persian Service, The National Interest, Persia Digest, U.S. News & World Report, Inside Higher Ed, and The Huffington Post.
Educational Background
- B.A., York University, 2003
- M.Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science, 2005
- Ph.D., Brown University, 2012
Regions of Interest
- Iran
- Middle East
Research Topics
- Enmity and Amity
- Non-Western Liberal Thought and Democratic Theory
- English School of IR
- Diplomatic History and Theory
- Modern Iran
- US-Iran Relations
Representative Publications
- Co-editor, Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Cosmopolitan Challenges (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023).
- Co-author, Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict (John's Hopkins University Press, 2022).
- Hidden Liberalism: Burdened Visions of Progress in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
- Co-author, Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War (Rowman & Littlefield), 2012.
- “Political Legitimacy and Democratic Rights in the Middle East,” in The Routledge Handbook of Human Rights in the Middle East, edited by Anthony T. Chase, Routledge, 2016.
- “The Wages of Enmity: On U.S.-Iran Relations,” International Politics Reviews, Vol. 1, No. 3: June 2014.
- “Democratic Solidarity: Rethinking Democracy Promotion in the New Middle East,” Security Dialogue, 44(5-6) October-December 2013.
- “Diplomatic Imaginations: Mediating Estrangement in World Society,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, February 2013.
- “Pariah Diplomacy,” in SAGE Handbook on Diplomacy, edited by Pauline Kerr, Paul Sharp and Costas Constantinou, SAGE Publications, 2015.
- “Reflexive Diplomacy,” in Reflexivity and International Relations, edited by Jack L. Amoureux and Brent J. Steele, Routledge Press, 2016.
- “The Future of US-Iran Relations,” in US-Iran Misperceptions: A Critical Dialogue, edited by John Tirman and Abbas Maleki, Bloomsbury, 2014.