Maziyar Ghiabi is completing his MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He worked with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Tehran and is now conducting research on policy-making and drug policies in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Of Italian/Iranian descent and fluent in Arabic and Farsi, he has travelled across the region, investigating issues such as minority and state relations, subalterns and political Islam.