[VIDEO] Understanding Iranian Public Opinion

 

Steven Kull, a political psychologist, is director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), which manages WorldPublicOpinion.org, and Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), University of Maryland. He is also director of the Program for Public Consultation which develops methods for governments to consult their publics on policy decisions. Dr. Kull has played a central role in the BBC World Service global poll, and regularly gives briefings to the US Congress, the State Department, the UN, and the European Commission. He appears frequently in the international media and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He recently completed a four-year study of the Muslim public, summarized in his newest book Feeling Betrayed: The Roots of Muslim Anger at America (Brookings).

 

Ebrahim Mohseni is a third-year doctoral student at the Maryland School of Public Policy and a graduate assistant at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). At CISSM, he is investigating the factors that influence Iran’s decision making in regards to its nuclear program. Before joining CISSM in September 2010, Mohseni was a research associate at the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) where he, along with other PIPA senior staff, designed questionnaires, analyzed survey data, and conducted in-depth survey research on issues of international significance in more than 40 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Morocco, the United States, Russia, China, and EU member countries. He has also worked alongside various research organizations inside and outside of Iran, investigating Iranian public opinion on issues of regional and international significance.

 

Colin Kahl is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, where he teaches courses on international relations, international security, the geopolitics of the Middle East, American foreign policy, and civil and ethnic conflict. He is currently studying the evolution of U.S. counterinsurgency practices in Iraq and the emerging U.S. regional security architecture to counter Iran. He has published articles on U.S. policy and military conduct in the Middle East in Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. From February 2009 to December 2011, Prof. Kahl was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon. In this capacity, he served as the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and six other countries in the Levant and Persian Gulf. He was responsible for strategy development and policy oversight of the responsible drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq, the Department's efforts to counter Iran's destabilizing activities, security enhancements to support Israeli security and facilitate the Middle East Peace Process, and efforts to build an integrated regional security architecture in the Gulf.

 

 

Geneive Abdo is a fellow at the Stimson Center. Her current research focuses on contemporary Iran and political Islam. She is conducting a study for the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution on Sunni-Shia relations. She was formerly the liaison officer for the Alliance of Civilizations, a U.N. initiative under Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Before joining the United Nations, Abdo was a foreign correspondent. From 1998-2001, Ms. Abdo was the Iran correspondent for the British newspaper the Guardian and a regular contributor to the Economist and the International Herald Tribune. She is the author of three books, including, No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First Century Iran (Henry Holt, 2003).

 

 

Sebastian Gräfe is the program director for Foreign & Security Policy at the Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America. Mr. Graefe worked previously as Senior Advisor at the European Parliament in Brussels. In this capacity, he dealt with European integration of the Western Balkans, EU structural funds as well as the EU internal market. He has worked extensively on Iran and spent time in Tehran doing research. Born in Eastern Germany, he holds a Masters of Arts in political science, economics and ethnology from t

he Leipzig University.