Saeid Golkar is an Iranian political scientist who finished his Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science at Tehran University in June 2008, with a dissertation entitled "Power and Resistance, State and University in Post Revolutionary Iran". He is currently in residence at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. From 2004 to 2009, he was a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at Azad University, in Iran, where he taught undergraduate courses on the political sociology of Iran and sociology of war and military forces. His research interests encompass politics of authoritarian regime, political sociology of Iran, political violence and democracy promotion in the Middle East. Recent publications include articles in the Journal of Middle East quarterly, Middle East brief.