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Biography

Azmi Bishara: Prominent Arab intellectual, political philosopher, and researcher whose primary interests centre on social philosophy and the theoretical social sciences and humanities. These include issues such as the state and civil society; religion and secularism; democracy, sectarianism, and collective identities; and matters of justice, freedom, and ethics. Bishara’s writings undertake an interdisciplinary approach to research and are divided across the theoretical and the applied. He rigorously adheres to strictly scientific methods to achieve objectivity, yet he rejects neutrality as a scientific approach, considering it a position that can be amoral and, at times, even immoral. Bishara has not limited himself to existing theories in the social sciences and humanities as presented by Western academia, but has made his own theoretical contributions, including through works such as Civil Society: A Critical Study (1996); The Question of the State: Philosophy, Theory, and Context (2023); and The Arab State: Beginnings and Evolution (2024). Bishara addresses questions of religion and secularism in his book Religion and Secularism in Historical Context (in two parts, the first published in 2013 and the second in 2015), emphasising that secularisation is affected by patterns of religiosity and explaining the different types and trajectories of secularism and secularisation.

In Sectarianism Without Sects (2021), Bishara contributes to the theoretical discourse by proposing the hypothesises that sectarianism is no longer a product of sects but rather sectarianism (in the form of movements and ideologies) produces sects, as imaginary cross-border communities. Bishara made further theoretical contributions with his trilogy on the 2011 Arab revolutions, Understanding Revolutions: Opening Acts in Tunisia (2021); Egypt: Revolution, Failed Transition and Counter-Revolution (2022); Syria 2011-2013: Revolution and Tyranny before the Mayhem (2023), among other works theorising on this issue. Originally, he published these three books in Arabic shortly after the outbreak of the revolutions: on the Tunisian (2012), Syrian (2013), and Egyptian (2016) uprisings, before revisiting this historical trajectory a decade later to release the English-language trilogy. In Democratic Transition and its Problematics: A Theoretical and Applied Comparative Study (2020), Bishara critically engages with democratic transition theories, offering significant theoretical contributions drawn from Arab case studies. The book is forthcoming in English under the title Arduous Paths: On the Theory and Practice of Democratic Transition.

Bishara has been involved in the Palestinian national struggle since his youth, starting with founding and chairing the first National Committee for Arab High School Students in 1974, his contribution to the Palestinian student movement at Israeli universities, and his involvement in the first intifada. He also worked to resurrect the national movement inside Palestine, then establishing the National Democratic Assembly (the Balad party), which he represented in the Knesset (1996-2007) to fight for the rights of Palestinians living within the green line and seek justice for the Palestinian cause. He has also published books related to understanding the structure of the Jewish state and Arabs living under it, most notably: The Arabs in Israel: A View from Within (2000); Propositions on the Impeded Renaissance (2003); and From the Jewishness of the State to Sharon: A Study in the Contradiction of Israeli Democracy (2004). He continued to advocate for the Palestinian cause after he was forced to leave Palestine in 2007 and continued his intellectual research production, documenting justice and the Palestinian struggle in his books, the most recent of which is Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice (Hurst, 2022). Bishara founded the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in 2010 and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in 2015, producing major research projects such as the "Doha Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language" and the "Encyclopedia Arabica".

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