Examines liberalism's invisible, yet influential status, in modern Iranian political and intellectual discourses.

Hussein Banai is Assistant Professor of International Studies in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, and Research Affiliate at the Center for International Studies at MIT. He is co-author of Becoming Enemies: US-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 (2012) and currently serves as Associate Editor (for Social Sciences) of Iranian Studies, the journal of the Association for Iranian Studies. His writings on Iran's political development and foreign relations have been published in in academic, policy, and popular periodicals.

1. Introduction: hidden liberalism; 2. Aspects of political liberalism in Iran; 3. The specter of westernism; 4. Liberation without liberalism; 5. Conclusion: (in)visible liberalisms.