Welcome! I’m Zep Kalb, a sociologist and Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. I’m affiliated with the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and its Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.
I am a political and economic sociologist interested in organizations, state formation, and comparative political economy, with a focus on Iran and the Middle East. My current research examines the conditions under which states develop institutions to manage, regulate, and coordinate markets. In my own and collaborative projects, I routinely integrate archival, survey, and computational methods. I’m especially interested in comparative-historical approaches.
My recent work is published in leading journals, including International Journal of Middle East Studies, Global Labour Journal, Development and Change, Journal of Agrarian Change, and Mediterranean Politics. At Princeton, I’m finishing my first book on the development of state-labor relations in Iran across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
I’m deeply committed to public and policy engagement. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Phenomenal World, Foreign Policy, and regional platforms such as Al Monitor, Sharq, Jadaliyya, MERIP, and the Project on Middle East Political Science. I’ve also appeared as a commentator for outlets including the BCC and CNN.
My work has been generously sponsored by Stanford’s Hoover Institution, Social Science Research Council, Data-Driven Social Science Initiative at Princeton University, Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, and the Bourse and Bazaar Foundation, among others.
I received my doctorate in sociology from UCLA. I lived in Iran for several years, where I worked as a journalist for a local financial newspaper and studied at the University of Tehran.
Outside of academia, I enjoy sports, travel, and …. reading the Financial Times (bad habits; I know). I also love movies. Feel free to check out some of my writings on global arthouse and non-Hollywood film!
2-S-9 Green Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544
zepkalb at princeton dot edu
