Life and Thought
Hamidreza Jalaeipour (born 1957 in Tehran) is an Iranian sociologist, journalist, and social activist. He is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tehran and a core member of the Iranian Sociological Association. Jalaeipour is a well-known figure in the analysis of social movements and reform in contemporary Iran.
Hamidreza Jalaeipour was born in 1957 in Tehran and studied at Alavi High School. He initially entered the Nafisi Technicum to study mechanical engineering, but after the Islamic Revolution, he turned to sociology. He completed his bachelor's and master's degrees in sociology with distinction at the University of Tehran (1987–1992) and received his PhD in political sociology in 1997 from Royal Holloway, University of London, with a dissertation on the Iranian Revolution and mass mobilization.
In the years following the revolution, Jalaeipour held executive responsibilities in Kurdistan, including serving as governor of Naqadeh and Mahabad and as deputy for political-security affairs of the Kurdistan Governorate. After the end of the Iran–Iraq War, he was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and went to England on a scholarship. During the reform era, he was a publisher and managing director of important newspapers of that period, such as Jame'eh, Tous, Asr-e Azadegan, Neshat, and Nosazi, and became a member of the central council of the Islamic Iran Participation Front.
Jalaeipour is currently an associate professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tehran, teaching courses on the sociology of social change, political sociology, and recent sociological theories. His research interests include political sociology, Iranian social movements, and sociological theories. Among his important works are 'Sociology of Social Movements,' 'The Hidden State,' 'After the Second of Khordad,' 'Sociology of Iran: The Quasi-Modern Society,' and 'Recent Sociological Theories.' In his analyses, he emphasizes the possibility of gradual reform and the role of social movements in Iran's transformations.
