Associate Professor • Director of Center for Middle East Studies
Josef Korbel School of International Studies

Institutional Affiliation 

Associate Professor, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.

Director, Center for Middle East Studies.

Education

  • PhD, University of Toronto
  • MA, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University
  • BA (Honors), University of Western Ontario

Regional and Thematic Interests

Middle East and Islamic affairs, religion and democracy, secularism, comparative politics and
political theory, politics of the Middle East, democracy and human rights, Islam-West relations.

Profile

  • Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California-Los Angeles and Global Fellow, UCLA International Institute (2007-2008)
  • Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University (2005-2007)
  • Research Affiliate, Center for Middle Easter Studies, Harvard University (2005-2006)
  • Adjunct Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto (2004-2005); Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo (2003-2004)

Selected Publication

The Muslim Experience with Secularism: Toward a New Understanding
Contemporary Islam in Critical Dialogue Series (Singapore: Wardah Books, 2017)

"Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East," Review of Faith and 
International Affairs
 15 (Fall 2017)

"Toward a Political Theory of Sectarianism in the Middle East: The Salience of 
Authoritarianism over Theology," Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies 1 (September 2016).

"Charles Taylor's A Secular Age and the Secularization from Below in Iran," in Mirjam 
Künkler, John Madeley and Shylashri Shankar eds., A Secular Age Beyond the West 
(Cambridge University Press, 2016).

"The ISIS Crisis and the Broken Politics of the Middle East: A Human Rights Framework for 
Understanding Radical Islamism," in Anthony T. Chase, Handbook on Human Rights and the 
Middle East and North Africa
 (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).

"A Theology of Moral Progress," Review of Khaled Abou El Fadl",
Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shariah in the Modern Age Critical Muslim, no. 14 (2015).

"Why Syria Matters: The Moral Imperative of Toppling the House of Al-Assad,"
Cairo Review of Global Affairs (Spring 2014).

"Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies: Rethinking the Relationship
between Islam and Secularism across the Islam-West Divide," in Ahmet Cavuldak,
Oliver Hidalgo, Philipp Hildmann and Holger Zapf eds., Demokratie und Islam. Theoretische 
und empirische Studien
 (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014), 121-136. 

"Rethinking Religion and Political Legitimacy Across the Islam-West Divide,"
Philosophy and Social Criticism volume 40, no. 3 (April 2014).

"Re-negotiating Iran's Post-Revolutionary Social Contract: The Green Movement and the 
Struggle for Democracy in the Islamic Republic," in Mehran Kamrava ed., The Evolving 
Ruling Bargain in the Middle East
 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 

"The Arab Spring and Iran's Green Movement: A Comparison" in Brian Calfano and Emile 
Sahliyeh eds., After the Spring: Looking Ahead to the New Seasons of Political Change and 
Stasis in the Middle East 
(Lanham, MD: Lexington/Roman and Littlefield, 2014). 
Co-authored with Mahmoud Sadri. 

Nader Hashemi on Syria, Savagery and Self-Determination, Excerpt from the The Syria 
Dilemma
 (MIT Press, 2013). 

"The Rowhani Challenge: Electoral Authoritarianism inside the Islamic Republic," Cairo 
Review of Global Affairs 
(Summer 2013). 

"The Arab Spring Two Years On: Reflections on Dignity, Democracy and Devotion," Ethics 
and International Affairs 27 
(Summer 2013). 

"Why Islam (properly understood) is the Solution: Reflections on the Role of Religion in
Tunisia's Democratic Transition
," American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 30 (July 
2013). 

"Islam and Democracy after 9/11," in Benjamin Isakhan and Stephen Stockwell eds., The 
Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy
 (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh 
University Press, 2013). 

Hashemi, Nader. "Islam and Democracy," in John Esposito and Emad Shahin eds., Oxford 
Handbook on Islam and Politics
 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 

"The Mosque and State after the Arab SpringPolicy Brief by the Institute for Social Policy 
and Understanding and the British Council 41
 (December 2012). 

"The Arab Spring, US Foreign Policy and the Question of Democracy in the Middle 
East," Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 41 (Fall 2012). 

Hashemi, Nader. "Religious Leaders, Sectarianism and the Sunni-Shia Divide in Islam," in 
Timothy Sisk ed., Between Terror and Tolerance: Religious Leaders in Deeply Divided 
Societies
 (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011).