Professor Vardan Voskanyan, Head of the Chair of Iranian Studies at the YSU Faculty of Oriental Studies, and Associate Professor Artyom Tonoyan have published a new scholarly article examining the discursive continuity of nationalism in Iran across successive political systems.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism by Wiley. The journal is widely recognized in the international academic community and indexed in major scholarly databases, highlighting the study's scientific significance and relevance.
In the article titled "Understanding the Continuity of Discursive Nationalism Under Successive Political Systems of Iran: Persian Gulf Naming, Pop-Nationalism and Symbolic Consensus," the authors analyze the characteristics of Iranian nationalist discourse, focusing in particular on the long-standing dispute over the naming of the Persian Gulf.
Drawing on critical discourse analysis and qualitative content from digital platforms, the study highlights a symbolic convergence between state, opposition and popular narratives.
According to the researchers, the issue of naming the Persian Gulf has long gone beyond the simple boundaries of a hydronym. It has instead become a shared affective and ideological platform that connects pre- and post-revolutionary elites, as well as digital communities inside and outside Iran.
The article emphasizes that these manifestations of "pop-nationalism" on digital platforms, while permitted by the state, channel deep-seated affect and reinforce a coordinated narrative of national identity.
The study makes a valuable contribution to political science and Iranian studies, demonstrating how changes in political systems do not necessarily disrupt the continuity of core discourses of national identity.
