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Dr Abdolrasool-Farzam Divsallar
Associate Senior Researcher
Dr Abdolrasool-Farzam Divsallar
Dr Abdolrasool-Farzam Divsallar is an Associate Senior Researcher at SIPRI. He is also a Senior Researcher with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and a Professor at the Higher School of Economics and International Relations (ASERI) at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. Between 2019 and 2023, he co-led the Regional Security Initiative at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, served as a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, and was a Policy Leader Fellow at the EUI School of Transnational Governance.
Dr Divsallar’s research focuses on the intersection of security and regional studies. He has authored eight books, including Struggle for Alliance: Russia and Iran in the Era of War in Ukraine (2024), and published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.
Subject expertise
Military doctrine and strategies, regional security architecture, nuclear and missile proliferation, Russia–Iran relations, deterrence and security assistance, arms control and disarmament
Regional expertise
Middle East and Persian Gulf, European Union’s southern neighbourhood, Russia
CONTACT Dr Abdolrasool-Farzam Divsallar
Languages
English, Persian, Italian
Education
PhD in Political Science – Iranian Studies, University of Tehran
External publications
- Divsallar, A., Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East: The Role of the WMD-Free Zone Initiative, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR: Geneva, 2025)
- Divsallar, A. (ed.), Struggle for Alliance: Russia and Iran in the Era of War in Ukraine (Bloomsbury Publishing: London, 2024)
- Divsallar, A. et al., ‘Protective integration and rising interdependency: Making sense of Iranian response to Russian invasion of Ukraine’, Chinese Journal of International Politics, vol. 17, no. 4 (2024)
- Divsallar, A. and Azizi, H., ‘Towards a non-Western model of security assistance: How Iran assists militaries’, Mediterranean Politics, vol. 29, no. 4 (2023)
- Divsallar, A., ‘The militarization of Iran’s perception of Saudi Arabia’, Muslim World, Feb. 2023
- Divsallar, A., ‘The foreign policy establishment in Iran’, ed. M. Kamrava, The Sacred Republic: Power and Institutions in Iran (Oxford University Press: London, 2023)
- Divsallar, A. and Alghannam, H., ‘The strategic calculus behind the Saudi–Iranian agreement’, Cairo Review of Global Affairs, 9 Apr. 2023
- Divsallar, A., ‘Shifting threats and strategic adjustment in Iran’s foreign policy: The case of the Strait of Hormuz’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 49, no. 5 (2022)
- Divsallar, A., ‘The pillars of Iranian–Russian security convergence’, International Spectator, vol. 54, no. 3 (2019)
- Divsallar, A. and Barzegar, K., ‘Political rationality in Iranian foreign policy’, Washington Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 1 (2017)