In this installment of the MERIP Roundtable podcast, we discuss the latest wave of protests in Iran. The protests began on December 28, 2025, as merchants and bazaar workers reacted negatively to new budgetary measures announced by President Masoud Pezeshkian. The protests snowballed in the first week of January, reaching a peak on and shortly after January 8, after which the government instituted an internet blackout. The protests have been widespread and increasingly cross-sectoral. They’ve also been met with harsh repression by the IRGC and its affiliates, with reports of clashes and summary executions resulting in thousands of casualties. The conversation covers the protests, how they compare and contrast with prior waves of unrest and how regional and global politics are influencing both the regime and its opposition. Joining MERIP’s executive director, James Ryan, are Kaveh Ehsani, a member of MERIP’s board of directors and a professor of international studies at DePaul University; Maziyar Ghiabi, a member of MERIP’s editorial committee and an associate professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter; and Asma Abdi, an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, also at Exeter’s Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies.
This conversation was recorded on January 21, 2026.
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Further Reading:
Setareh Shohadaei, Nazanin Shahrokni, Peyman Jafari, Kaveh Ehsani, Arash Davari and Maziyar Behrooz, “Echoes of a Short War: Critical Reflections on Israel’s Attack on Iran” Jadaliyya roundtable, September 23rd, 2025
Arang Keshavarzian, “An Explosion Long in the Making” Equator January 17, 2026
Naghmeh Sohrabi, “We Can’t Live Like This Anymore” Equator January 18, 2026
Yassamine Mather, “Seeds of Revolt: Iran’s Economic Collapse and Inflation” Counterpunch January 16, 2026
Gal Beckerman, “The Silence of the Left on Iran” The Atlantic January 16, 2026
Asma Abdi, “A feminist international political economy of sanctions: crises and the shifting gendered regimes of labor and survival in Iran” International Feminist Journal of Politics August 15, 2022
Iman Ganji and Bahar Noorizadeh, “Iran’s Three Body Problem” N Plus One January 16, 2026
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “Scylla and Charybdis” New Left Review January 20, 2026
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