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The Director of the Foundation for Inclusive Society, Ramin Jabbarli, participated as a panelist at an event held at the University of Toronto titled Mother Tongue in a Changing World, organized by the IPEK Center.
In his talk, Jabbarli examined how language-based inequality and exclusionary language policies in Iran have contributed to the long-term underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in national politics. Drawing on a century-long dataset he compiled covering 1925 to 2024, he compared patterns of political representation between the dominant Persian ethnic group and the subordinate Azerbaijani Turk ethnic group, tracing how institutional rules have shaped unequal access to the state.
He discussed how Persian-language requirements for public office and state employment, institutionalized since the early twentieth century, have operated as durable barriers that restrict political entry for non-Persian groups. He emphasized that these language mandates functioned as mechanisms of exclusion and opportunity hoarding, including during early state-building periods when literacy rates were extremely low, yet Persian-language requirements still structured access to political institutions.
Using longitudinal evidence from the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925 through 2024, Jabbarli presented trends showing the long-term decline in the political representation of Azerbaijanis and discussed the broader implications for ethnic stratification and institutional inequality in Iran.
The Foundation for Inclusive Society views participation in academic and public forums as part of its mission to advance evidence-based dialogue on inclusion, equal representation, and institutional inequality.
