Linda S. Bishai

Dr. Bishai joined the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) in April 2020, working on a wide range of international security issues including African regional economic communities, security cooperation in Africa, and monitoring instability in central and southern Africa. She has twenty years of experience in teaching, training and writing on international law, peacebuilding and security sector reform, and preventing/countering violent extremism. In her previous positions at the American Bar Association and at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Bishai designed and delivered workshops on teaching human rights in Iraq, teaching peacebuilding and election violence prevention in Sudan, women’s roles in preventing violent extremism in Nigeria and Kenya, and developing effective responses to radicalization and violent extremism in Kosovo. As Director of North Africa programs at USIP, Bishai facilitated dialogues on just and sustainable security sector responses to violent extremism and border security with high level officials and civil society actors from the Sahel and the Maghreb. As Director of Research, Evaluation and Learning at the ABA Rule of Law Initiative, Bishai oversaw the activities of a team of legal researchers and monitoring & evaluation professionals. Her recently edited volume on Law, Security and the State of Perpetual Emergency explores the blurring of law enforcement and defense activities in the counter-terrorism context. Bishai holds a B.A. in history and literature from Harvard University, a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and LLM in international law from the University of Stockholm, and a Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics.