Nationalism and Ethnicity in Iran

Perhaps few words today can be as challenging as nationalism. This subject is now considered one of the fundamental topics in social sciences, to the extent that in recent years no political or social phenomenon has attracted as much attention as nationalism. Nationalism is a modern ideology for constructing new identities and preserving the tradition and historical past of collective identities. According to Gellner (1983), nationalism is the modern ideology of the nation. In recent decades, nationalism has been reconsidered and has drawn the attention of many scholars from various disciplines worldwide. In Iran, although nationalism has sporadically attracted the interest of some researchers, there is no academic tradition of study in this field. A review of existing studies shows that not only has Iranian nationalism been insufficiently discussed, but despite its importance and evident impact on contemporary Iranian history, it remains an almost forgotten phenomenon in academic studies. Overall, nationalism, especially in its modern sense, has received little attention in Iranian social sciences, particularly sociology. Most empirical research in Iran focuses on collective identities (national, ethnic, religious, local, etc.) and some on the important topic of national cohesion. Although these studies have attempted to explore the end goals, they have neglected to examine the processes and tools used to achieve these goals, namely nationalism.