Lahouari Addi is a professor at the Institut d'Études Politiques at the University of Lyon, and research fellow at the Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie Sociale et Culturelle in Oran, Algeria. He is the author of numerous books and articles on North Africa and political Islam, including Deux anthropologues au Maghreb: Ernest Gellner et Clifford Geertz and L'Algérie et la Democratie.