Ziad Majed

Associate Professor, Program Coordinator for Middle East Pluralities

  • Department: History and Politics
  • Graduate Program(s): International Affairs, International Affairs, Conflict Resolution and Civil Society Development, Diplomacy and International Law
  • Office: 
    G-006
  • Office Hours: 
    By appointment

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Professor Majed is the Elliott E. Burdette Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and teaches Middle East studies and writes on Lebanese, Syrian and Arab affairs as well as on regional political transitions and crises. Since 1994, he has been involved in research work and reform campaigns related to political processes and civil society causes in Lebanon and other Arab countries. For the last twenty years, Majed has been regularly publishing articles and papers in Arabic (in Now Lebanon, Al-Quds al-Arabi, Al-Hayat, Aljazeera Center, the Journal for Palestine Studies, Daraj and Megaphone) and in French (in L'Orient Littéraire, Mediapart, Le Monde, L'Express, Libération and AOC).

He is a board member in Lebanese, Syrian and French cultural institutes and organizations, and a lecturer in international festivals and annual conferences.



Education/Degrees

  • PhD in Political Sciences, IEP - Sciences-Po, Paris
  • DEA in Political Sciences, IEP - Sciences-Po, Paris
  • MA in Arabic Literature, the Americain University of Beirut
  • BA in Economics, the American University of Beirut

Publications

Books

Dans la tête de Bachar Al-Assad, with Subhi Hadidi and Farouk Mardam-Bey, Actes Sud, Paris, 2018.

Iran and its four Arab fronts, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 2017

Sourya, Al-thawra al-Yatima (Syria, the Orphan Revolution), Sharq al-Kitab, Beirut, 2014 (In Arabic).

Syrie, La Révolution Orpheline, Actes Sud et l’Orient des Livres, Paris, 2014.

‘An Rabi’ Bayrout wal Dawla Annakissa (On the Beirut Spring and the Unachieved State), Dar Annahar, Beirut, 2006. (In Arabic).

Editor, Building Democracy in Yemen: Women's Political Participation, Political Party Life and Democratic Elections, International IDEA, Stockholm, 2005.

Editor, Building Democracy in Jordan: Women's Political Participation, Political Party Life and Democratic Elections, International IDEA, Stockholm, 2005.

Editor, Building Democracy in Egypt: Women's Political Participation, Political Party Life and Democratic Elections, International IDEA, Stockholm, 2005.

Chapters in Books

Foreword to "Lettres à Samira", Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, Éditions des Lisières, Toulouse, 2021.

“Les mots des révolutions” in Il était une fois les revolutions, L’Institut du Monde Arabe et Seuil, Paris 2021.

Foreword to "Syria: Borders, Boundaries, and the State", with Nassima Neggaz, edited by Matthieu Cimino and published by Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2020.

“Refugees in Jordan and Lebanon” in Escaping the Escape, Bertelsmann foundation, Berlin 2017.

“Les russes ont réussi à inverser le rapport de forces militaire”, in Sur la revolution syrienne, Editions La Lenteur, Paris 2017.

“Introduction: A new foundational moment among conflicts and changing parameters” in Political developments in Arab countries since 2011, the Amercian University of Beirut and L’Orient des Livres, Beirut 2017.

“What are the challenges after Arab Revolutions” in Hassan Krayem, Ed. The Arab Spring: Revolutions for Deliverance from Authoritarianism, The Arab Network for the Study of Democracy, Beirut 2014

"Consensus democracy and political representation" in Elizabeth Picard and Alexander Ramsbotham, Eds, Reconciliation, reform and resilience: positive peace for Lebanon, Conciliation resources, London, 2012

“New forms of cooperation?” in The Future of the Mediterranean, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Berlin, 2011.

Articles in Academic journals and policy papers published by research centers

“Syrie: revolution, barbarie et occupations”, Confluences, Paris 2021.

“L’agonie du consociativisme libanais”, AOC journal, Paris, October 2020.

“Beirut’s explosion and the death of a system” (Arabic), Journal for Palestine Studies, September 2020.

“The French initiative in Lebanon” (Arabic), Aljazeera Center for Studies, August 2020.

“The necessary relation between resistance to Foreign Occupation and struggle against local despotism” (Arabic), Journal for Palestine Studies, June 2019.

“Trump, the Golan heights and the violation of International Law” (Arabic), Aljazeera Center for Studies, May 2019.

“Arab Normalization with Assad’s Syria as part of the counter-revolutionary process” (Arabic), Aljazeera Center for Studies, February 2019.

“The South-Syria Russian sponsored accords” (Arabic), Aljazeera Center for Studies, July 2018.

“Syria, the regime of violence” (French), AOC journal, Paris, December 2018.

“The reasons for the Lebanese Saudi political crisis” (Arabic), Aljazeera Center for Studies, February 2018.

“New American and Russian approaches in Syria?” (Arabic), in Aljazeera Center for Studies, August 2017.

“Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf” (Arabic), in Aljazeera Center for Studies, March 2017.

“Syria after Aleppo: the Russian strategy” (Arabic) in Aljazeera Center for Studies, September 2016.

“Existential crisis in Lebanon” (French and Spanish), in Afkar/idées, Spring 2016, published by the Estudios de Politica Exterior (Madrid) and the Institut Européen de la Méditerranée (Barcelona).

“Kurds in North East Syria: Internal calculations and external alliances” (Arabic), in Aljazeera Center for Studies, August 2015.

“The evolution of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria” (Arabic), in Aljazeera Center for Studies, June 2015.

“Democracy in the Balance: The Complex Dynamics of the Arab World Make Outcomes Far from Certain”, in Connections, Dayton, Ohio, 2014 (published by the Kettering Foundation).

“Sixty four years since the Palestinian Nakba” (Arabic), in The Journal for Palestine Studies, issue 90, Spring 2012, Beirut

Hezbollah and the Lebanese Shiite community, The Aspen Insitute, Washington DC, 2010.

Translation

Yassin Al Haj Saleh, La question syrienne, (Arabic to French, with Nadia Leila Aissaoui and Farouk Mardam Bey), Actes Sud, Paris 2016, (235 pages).

Affiliations

  • Coordinator, The Arab Network for the Study of Democracy
  • Opinion writer, Al-Quds Al-Arabi

Research Areas

  • Consociational democracy
  • Political transitions in the Middle East
  • Political Islam
  • Political reforms and electoral systems in the Arab countries
  • State and Society in Lebanon and Syria
  • The question of Palestine

Curriculum Vitae