Iran in Transition: Iran’s Security Forces and the Future of Political Order with Saeid Golkar

This lecture examines the role of Iran’s security forces in shaping the country’s political future amid deep uncertainty. Focusing on the IRGC, the Basij, and the broader coercive apparatus, it analyzes these institutions not only as instruments of repression but also as central political actors. Taking seriously the possibility that Iran may face a different political order by the time of this presentation, the lecture asks how security institutions may shape the outcome of a crisis, whether through regime survival, internal fragmentation, managed transition, or the consolidation of a new regime.Saeid Golkar is the UC Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He specializes in the politics of authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on Iran and the broader Middle East. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Tehran and previously held research and teaching positions at Stanford University and Northwestern University. Golkar is the author of Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Columbia University Press, 2015), which received the Washington Institute’s Silver Medal Prize. His forthcoming book, Dictators and the Higher Education Dilemma, will be published by Rutgers University Press in spring 2026.