Ammar Maleki

My research expertise and interest are in two different disciplines: cross-cultural differences and democratic governance. I am interested to examine the relation and interaction between societal culture and institutional settings of democratic governance. The Cultural Compatibility Thesis of Democracy developed in my PhD dissertation posits that societal culture matters in the process of opting, adopting and adapting political institutions of democracy. The thesis suggests that the mentality of adopting the best model of democracy should be replaced with the attitude of finding the most compatible model.

I am also a pro-democracy activist and political analyst of Iranian politics. I am the director of GAMAAN (the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran) research foundation. Appearing in media and using Twitter, I try to have an impact on political debates around democratization of Iran.