Law & Government

Biographical Details:

Paola Rivetti is an ICRHSS Post-doctoral Fellow at the School of Law and Government, DCU, Ireland (2011-2013) under Dr. Francesco Cavatorta's mentorship, and her research focuses on student activism under authoritarianism with a particular attention to Iran. She completed a PhD in History and Social Sciences in 2010 (University of Siena, Italy) on Khatami's Iran and Iranian post-revolutionary reformism. She is a recipient of the grant "Master dei talenti," funded by the University of Turin (2010-2011) and "Islam, the modern nation state and transnational movements," funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation (2012-2013). She lectured in Geopolitics in 2009-2010 at the Catholic University of Milan and Normandy Business School at Le Havre, France.

Research Interests:

Dr. Rivetti's current research interests are the politics of reformism, civil society, transnational mobilization and student politics in authoritarian contexts and in particular in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Selected Peer Reviewed Journals

• Paola Rivetti. 2013. Empowerment without emancipation. Performativity and political activism among Iranian refugees in Italy and Turkey. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, forthcoming,
• Paola Rivetti and Francesco Cavatorta. 2013. 'The importance of being civil society': student politics and the reformist movement in Khatami's Iran. Middle Eastern Studies, Forthcoming,
• Paola Rivetti. 2013. Democracy and secularism in Iran. Lessons for the Arab Spring?. Mediterranean Politics, 1, 18
• Paola Rivetti and Francesco Cavatorta. 2012. Iranian student activism between authoritarianism and democratization: Patterns of conflict and cooperation between the Office for the Strengthening of Unity and the regime. Democratization, iFirst, iFirst, pp1-22.
• Paola Rivetti. 2011. Italian Alpine expeditions to Iran according to archives.. Storia Urbana, 131,, pp129-149.
• Paola Rivetti. 2011. Starting from land and history. A tentative interpretation. Storia Urbana, 131,, pp11-35.
• Paola Rivetti, Lorena Barale. 2010. With the heart and keyboard. Some documents from the protest against the Cop15 Summit. Historia Magistra, 2, 3, pp90-103.
• Paola Rivetti. 2009. Reinventing the Revolution. Khomeinism and the debate on democracy in Iran. Historia Magistra, 1, 2, pp66-84.

Selected Books

• Paola Rivetti, Rosita Di Peri. Civil Society Effect. Practices and Rhetoric in Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Morocco, BONANNO EDITORE, 2010.

Selected Chapters

• Paola Rivetti. 2013. Co-opting civil activism in Iran, in Civil Society in Syria and Iran: Activism in Authoritarian Contexts,. , pp187-206.
• Paola Rivetti, Sandro Busso. 2012. The coping strategies of precarious researchers in Italian universities. Between political agency and structural constraints. In MAPPE DELLA PRECARIETA'. Knowledge workers, creatività, saperi e dispositivi di soggettivazione. , pp145-160.
• Paola Rivetti and Riccardo Redaelli. 2012. The Arab spring and the Iranian winter (in Italian), In: La primavera araba. Origini ed effetti delle rivolte che stanno cambiando il Medio Oriente. , pp225-240.
• Dr. Paola Rivetti and Rosita Di Peri. 2012. Religion and politics in the Middle East. Religions between peace and war, pp163-185.
• Paola Rivetti. 2012. Student movements in the Islamic Republic: shaping the countrys politics through the campus. Chaillot Paper 128, Iran: A Revolutionary Republic in Transition, pp81-101.
• Paola Rivetti. 2010. The Concept and Practice of Islamic civil society in Iran. The study of Islam within social science in universities. Case Studies volume # 1,, pp74-79.
• Paola Rivetti. 2010. Civil Society in Iran. Notes on consensus, power and politics. Civil Society Effect. Practices and Rhetoric in Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Morocco, pp39-71.
• Paola Rivetti and Sandro Busso. 2010. Rhetoric on Civil Society. A Cultural Instrument for Counter-power?. Culture and Politics. Towards a culturalist democracy?, pp21-34.

Reviews

• Paola Rivetti. 2012. Iran in the 21st Century: Politics, Economics and Conflict Homa Katouzian and Hossein Shahidi (eds). British Journal Of Middle Eastern Studies, 39, pp283-285.
• Paola Rivetti. 2010. Osanloo, A. (2009), The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran. Journal Of Shi¿a Islamic Studies, 3, pp244-248.
• Paola Rivetti. 2010. Duranti, A. (2007), Il rosso il nero e la rivoluzione della modernita'. Breve storia del pensiero iraniano contemporaneo. Abstracta Iranica, 30,
• Paola Rivetti. 2010. Abrahamian, E. (2009), Storia dell'Iran. Dai primi del Novecento a oggi. Il Mestiere Di Storico, 10, pp101-101.
• Paola Rivetti. 2010. Redaelli, R. (2009), L'Iran contemporaneo. Storia Urbana, 129,
• Paola Rivetti. 2010. Bartolomei E. et al. (2010), Pianificare l'oppressione. Le complicita' dell'accademia israeliana, Edizioni Seb, Torino, 2010. Historia Magistra, 1, pp170-.
• Paola Rivetti. 2009. Jahanbegloo, R. (2009), Leggere Gandhi a Teheran. Historia Magistra, 1, pp168-.

Selected Non-peer Reviewed Journals

• Dr. Paola Rivetti. 2009. From reform movement to the green wave. Actors, political discourse and ideology. Giornale di storia contemporanea, 12, pp214-235.
• Dr. Paola Rivetti. 2009. The 'new Iranian intellectuals.' An historiographical issue. Ricerche si storia sociale e religiosa, 76, pp295-323.
• Dr. Paola Rivetti. 2008. The missed revolution. Presence and failure of Marxism in Iran. Critica marxista, 46, pp203-212.
• Dr. Paola Rivetti. 2008. Political pressure in the IRI. The case of the student movement. SPS Storia Politica Societa, 8, pp122-133.

• Rivetti Paola, Translating democracy and human rights. The Iranian Islamic Human Rights Commission as a tool of legitimacy for the regime., Middle East Studies Association - MESA annual conference, 17-NOV-12 - 20-NOV-12, Denver, CO
• Rivetti Paola, The Role of Diasporas in Establishing Transnational Activism: The Case of Iran, International Conference on Iranian Diaspora, 13-OCT-12 - 14-OCT-12, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
• Paola Rivetti, The spring of Arab movements? The role of the movements in fostering political change in the Arab world, The spring of Arab movements? The role of the movements in fostering political change in the Arab world - Italian Association of Political Science, 13-SEP-12 - 15-SEP-12, Università di Roma Tre, Rome
• Rivetti, Paola, Activism in Ahmadinejads Iran. Beyond the in/dependence of civil society, The International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) The Ninth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference, 01-AUG-12 - 05-AUG-12, Istanbul, Turkey
• Rivetti, Paola, Iranians in Turkey, Transnational Political Activism and the Legitimacy Crisis of the Regime, Revolution and Revolt: Understanding the Forms and Causes of Change, 2012 BRISMES Annual Conference, 26-MAR-12 - 28-MAR-12, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Rivetti Paola, Sandro Busso and Cecilia Rubiolo, The precarious struggle. The dark sides of a mobilization in universities, SISP (Italian Political Science Association) Annual Congress, 08-SEP-11 - 10-SEP-11, University of Palermo, Italy
• Rivetti, Paola, Copying with Civil Society. State-society relations through the civil organizations in Khatami and Ahmadinejads Iran, SISP (Italian Political Science Association) Annual Congress, 08-SEP-11 - 10-SEP-11, University of Palermo, Italy
• Rivetti, Paola, Making sense of 2009/2010 protests in Iran. Green movement, green moment and the future challenges, MESA Annual Congress, 18-NOV-10 - 21-NOV-10, San diego, USA
• Rivetti, Paola, The importance of being civil society. Mechanisms of legitimacy, shifting boundaries and political agency of civil society in Khatamis Iran., World Congress of Middle East Studies (WOCMES), 19-JUL-10 - 24-JUL-10, IEMed Barcelona
• Rivetti Paola and Sandro Busso, Rhetoric on Civil Society. A Cultural Instrument for Counter-power? (in Spanish), In: Vianello A., Diaz E. ed.III Taller para jovenes investigadores, 03-DEC-09 - 04-DEC-09, Cidob-Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, 21 - 34
• Rivetti, Paola, From Revolution to Evolution? The Iranian Student Movement., MIDDLE EAST STUDIES ASSOCIATION - MESA ANNUAL CONGESS, 22-NOV-08 - 25-NOV-08, WASHINGTON, USA
• Rivetti, Paola, Jome-ye madani. A Critical view on civil society in Iran, SeSaMO (Italian Society for Middle East Stduies) Annual Congress, 15-OCT-08 - 17-OCT-08, University of Turin, Italy