A political scientist and an Arabist, specialising in Iraq, the Middle East and the Arab world, Myriam Benraad holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po, Centre for International Research (CERI, UMR 7050), 2003-2016). She is a research fellow at the Institute for Research and Studies on the Arab and Muslim World (IREMAM, 7310 AMU / CNRS, 2013-) and theFoundation for Strategic Research (FRS, 2015-). Her doctoral dissertation, defended in January 2011, focused on the socio-political and identity-related experience of Iraqi Sunni Arabs against the backdrop of U.S. occupation.

As part of her research in the Middle East, she raised the emergence of the Islamic State and its centrality in both the evolution and the reconfiguration of Iraq’s lasting crisis as of late 2006. She is a member of the French Political Science Association (AFSP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). Her main research topics are: states, nations, identities, ethnicities and communities; history and socio-political recompositions in contemporary Iraq; authoritarianism, totalitarianism and their legacies in the Middle East; comparative sociology of social movements and protests; transitional justice, reconciliation policies and practices; modernity, secularisation, Islam and politics; emotions and violence; stigma, discrimination and labelling.

In 2015, she was among the three finalists of the Prix Brienne du Livre de Géopolitique, presented by the Lire la société association in partnership with the French Ministry of Defence, and the Prix Mondes en guerre, mondes en paix of the Salon du Livre d’Histoire de Verdun for her book Iraq, the Revenge of History. From Foreign Occupation to the Islamic State (Paris, Vendémiaire). The latter was the subject of many reviews.