To visit Sina Mirzaei's Google Scholar page, click the link below:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Blj-rZsAAAAJ

Peer Reviewed Articles

• Mirzaei, Sina. 2025. “Ressentiment Politics and Identity Formation: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Azerbaijanis in Iran.” Social Identities 31 (3): 354–370. doi:10.1080/13504630.2025.2459070
• Giwa, Ayotunde, Jessica Ngakam, Sina Mirzaei, and Adediran Daniel Ikuomola. 2025. “Emerging Dependencies: GCC States and Sub-Saharan African Healthcare Labor Migration Through World Systems Analysis.” World Medical and Health Policy 17(4): 739-744. https://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.70037
• Mirzaei, Sina, Ayotunde Giwa, and Eyal Bar. 2025. “Missing from the Curriculum: A Content Analysis of Labor Politics in International Relations Textbooks.” Journal of Political Science Education.https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2025.2553335
• Moghimi, Leyla, and Sina Mirzaei. 2024. “Comparing Writing Outcomes in Online and In-Person EFL Instructions for Intermediate Male and Female Students.” International Journal of Practical and Pedagogical Issues in English Education 2 (1): 24–37.

If you are interested in any of my publications, feel free to email me at sm3853@nau.edu. I can share a copy of manuscript's a prepublication version.

Dissertation

Title: Strategic Uncertainty, Rent Distribution, and Coup Risk in Rentier States

Abstract: How do rentier states maintain regime stability when the rents they control attract multiple factions competing for power? This dissertation argues that some rentier regimes deliberately sustain uncertainty in rent distribution as a coup-proofing strategy that raises coordination costs for potential challengers beyond the level at which organized seizures of power remain feasible. Building on formal rent-seeking behavior theories, the study identifies three dimensions of uncertainty that regimes can manipulate to disrupt elite calculations about whether a coup is worth attempting. Network uncertainty obscures who is competing for rents and who would support a coup. Value uncertainty obscures how large the rent pool actually is. Distribution uncertainty obscures the rules and patterns through which rents are allocated. Combinations of these three uncertainties create a foggy environment in which coordination becomes difficult and this decreases the coup likelihood. Using a multi-method design that combines fixed effects panel models covering 52 rentier states from 1975 to 2021 with qualitative case studies of Algeria and Angola, the dissertation finds that the simultaneous presence of all three dimensions in their strategic ranges corresponds to lower coup risk.

Other publications

• Mirzaei, Sina, and Behzad Jeddi. 2023. Human Rights Reports of 2022 Jina Mahsa Amini Protests. AHRAZ Human Rights (Part of human rights data collection for the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Iran) http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.21445.05609
• IPEK Research Center. 2025–2026. Socio-Political Attitudes Survey of Ethno-Linguistic Minorities in Iran (Principal Investigator: Sina Mirzaei; data collection underway, anticipated N ≈ 500).