All of the Arab Center’s activities are overseen by a Board of Directors composed of distinguished academics, selected for their combined experience and academic expertise. In each session, the Board of Directors discusses the general plan for the Center, its annual budget and the reports produced across departments. The board identifies weaknesses and plans to overcome them, along with steps that should be taken to enhance the continuous development and effectiveness of the Center, in line with its mission.
General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI). Bishara is a leading Arab researcher and intellectual with numerous books and academic publications on political thought, social theory and philosophy. He was named by Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire as one of the world’s most influential thinkers. His publications in Arabic include Civil Society: A Critical Study (1996); From the Jewishness of the State to Sharon (2004); On The Arab Question: An Introduction to an Arab Democratic Manifesto (2007); To Be an Arab in Our Times (2009); On Revolution and Susceptibility to Revolution (2012); Religion and Secularism in Historical Context (in 3 vols., 2013, 2015); The Army and Political Power in the Arab Context: Theoretical Problems (2017); The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh): A General Framework and Critical Contribution to Understanding the Phenomenon (2018); What is Populism? (2019) and Democratic Transition and its Problems: Theoretical Lessons from Arab Experiences (2020). Some of these works have become key references within their respective field. His latest publication titled The Question of the State: Philosophy, Theory, and Context (2023).
Bishara’s English publications include Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice (Hurst, 2022); On Salafism: Concepts and Contexts (Stanford University Press, 2022); Sectarianism without Sects (Oxford University Press, 2021), among other writings. His trilogy on the Arab revolutions, published by I.B. Tauris, consists of Understanding Revolutions: Opening Acts in Tunisia (2021); Egypt: Revolution, Failed Transition and Counter-Revolution (2022); and Syria 2011-2013: Revolution and Tyranny before the Mayhem (2023), in which he provides a theoretical analysis in addition to a rich, comprehensive and lucid assessment of the revolutions in three Arab countries: Tunisia, Egypt and Syria.
Ghanim Al-Najjar is a professor of political science at Kuwait University and a member of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS)'s Board of Directors. Previously, he was a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, served as director of the Center for Strategic and Future Studies, and was the editor of the Gulf Studies Series Journal, United Arab Emirates. Dr. Al-Najjar has been a visiting scholar at several universities, including Harvard's Human Rights Program, Law School, and the Kennedy School of Government. Until recently, he was the UN independent expert for Human Rights in Somalia, a mandate he held for 8 years. Dr. Al-Najjar headed and participated in a number of international fact-finding missions in several countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Somalia.
Dr. Al-Najjar is the founder of the Centre for Strategic and Future Studies in Kuwait University. He is a member of the executive committee of the Arab Sociological Association, and a member of the board of the Arab Human Rights Fund based in Beirut, as well as an international commissioner with the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva. Moreover, he is a member of the editorial boards of several academic journals. The publication "The Challenges Facing Kuwaiti Democracy", which appeared in the Middle East Journal, is one of many of his published works.