Afshin Molavi is the author of Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran (Norton, 2002), which was nominated for the Thomas Cook literary travel book of the year and described by Foreign Affairs as “a brilliant tableau of today’s Iran.” A former Dubai-based correspondent for the Reuters news agency and a regular contributor to The Washington Post from Iran, Mr. Molavi has covered the Middle East and Washington for a wide range of international publications. His articles and op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, Smithsonian, National Geographic, BusinessWeek, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, The Christian Science Monitor, The Nation, the Journal of Commerce, and The Wilson Quarterly, among other publications. He comments regularly on Iran and the Middle East on CNN, the BBC, National Public Radio, and other broadcast outlets. Born in Iran, but raised and educated in the West, Mr. Molavi holds a master’s degree in Middle East history and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He has also worked at the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector development arm of the World Bank.

As a Fellow at the New America Foundation, Mr. Molavi studies the links between economic development and democratization, with a special emphasis on the Middle East. He argues that the region’s widespread economic failure represents the largest obstacle to regional democratization because it creates societies that have weak middle classes that are overly dependent on the state or susceptible to the utopian promises of undemocratic opposition forces. At New America, he will also examine the “New Silk Road”—the growing trade, cultural, diplomatic, and business ties between the Middle East and Asia. Mr. Molavi is also interested in issues related to global economic development, globalization and culture, and the economics of immigration.