Farhang Rajaee (born 1952 in Khosbijan, near Arak, Iran) is an Iranian political theorist, scholar of political philosophy and international relations, author, and translator. He is widely recognized for his contributions to political theory, Iranian identity, Islamic political thought, globalization, and civilizational studies. After teaching and conducting research in Iran for a decade, he moved to Canada in 1996, where he became a Full Professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University. He also served for ten years as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and currently holds the university’s chair in the study of modernity and civilization.

Education
Rajaee completed his primary education in his native village of Khosbijan and his secondary education in Arak. He received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Tehran in 1975, where he studied under distinguished scholars such as Hamid Enayat and Abolfazl Ghazi, alongside classmates including Ali Gheissari and Fakhruddin Azimi.

He earned an M.A. in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma in 1977 and completed his Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia in 1983. His intellectual development was further shaped by scholars including Charles Taylor, Kenneth W. Thompson, and Inis L. Claude, and he belongs to the academic lineage of Hans Morgenthau.

Academic Career and Publications
Between 1986 and 1996, Rajaee taught and conducted research at several major Iranian universities and research institutes, including the University of Tehran, Shahid Beheshti University, Imam Sadiq University, Tarbiat Modares University, Kharazmi University, the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, the School of International Relations of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Center for Strategic Research on the Middle East.

Since relocating to Canada in 1996, he has continued his academic career at Carleton University, while also holding visiting appointments or research fellowships at the University of Oxford, Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Virginia, and Shawnee State University in Ohio.

His research focuses on:

Political philosophy and political theory
Islamic and non-Western political thought
Iranian identity and civilization
Globalization and the human condition
Comparative politics and international relations
Rajaee has authored numerous influential books in both Persian and English, including Globalization on Trial, Islamism and Modernism, The Battle of Worldviews, The Development of Political Ideas in the Ancient East, The Problematique of Contemporary Iranian Identity, and Being a Player in the Garden of Iranian Identity.

He is also a distinguished translator, although he describes his work not as literal translation but as a process of interpretation, critical engagement, and intellectual reconstruction. Among his most influential Persian translations are Leo Strauss’s What Is Political Philosophy?, Charles Taylor’s The Language Animal / The Virtuous Life in a Secular Age (Persian edition), Fernand Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism, Hannah Arendt’s Love and Saint Augustine, and several edited collections on political theory and power.

Achievements and Honors
Full Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Carleton University
Former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Carleton University (ten-year tenure)
Holder of Carleton University’s academic chair on Modernity and Civilization
Internationally recognized scholar of political theory, identity studies, and Islamic political thought
Author of numerous scholarly books and articles published in Persian and English
Translator and interpreter of major works by Leo Strauss, Charles Taylor, Hannah Arendt, Fernand Braudel, and other leading political thinkers