Professor Mariz Tadros is a professor of politics and development and an IDS Research Fellow specialising in the politics and human development of the Middle East. Areas of specialisation include democratisation, Islamist politics, gender, sectarianism, human security and religion and development.
Mariz convenes the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development (CREID), launched in November 2018. She is also the PI of the British Academy initiative on heritage repertoires for sustainable development in Egypt and beyond.
Since joining IDS, she has led several multi-disciplinary, multi-country research programmes in thematic areas relating to civil society and democratisation, gender, politics, human security, religion and development. She was formerly Co-Director of the DFID-supported RPC on Social and Political Action for Empowerment and Accountability.
Mariz has authored over one hundred research outputs, and her monographs include: Resistance, Revolt, and Gender Justice in Egypt, The Muslim Brotherhood in Contemporary Egypt: Democracy redefined or confined? and Copts at the Crossroads: The challenges of building an inclusive democracy in contemporary Egypt. Mariz is also editor of Women in Politics: Gender, Power and Development. Her latest co-edited book with Kenneth Ross and Todd Johnson is Christianity in North Africa and the Middle East, and she has also edited or co-edited several IDS Bulletins, the latest being in 2020: Collective Action for Accountability on Sexual Harassment: Global Perspectives (with Jenny Edwards).
Prior to joining IDS, Mariz Tadros was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo and worked for many years as a journalist for Al-Ahram Weekly English language newspaper in Cairo, where she published over 300 articles on a variety of subjects including civil society, women in Egypt and the Arab region, poverty and social justice. She has extensive experience as a development practitioner and worked as a consultant for many international organisations, including the Ford Foundation. Mariz obtained her doctorate from Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford in 2004.
