Thomas Hegghammer is a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment in Oslo. He has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and at Harvard, Princeton, New York and Stanford universities. His book Jihad in Saudi Arabia (2010) won the silver medal of the Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council of Foreign Relations. He also co-authored Al-Qaida in its Own Words (2008) and The Meccan Rebellion (2011). His many articles, reports and op-eds have appeared in journals and newspapers such as the American Political Science Review, International Security, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times.

Stéphane Lacroix is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po, Paris and a research fellow at the Centre d'Études et de Recherches Internationales. Since 2010, he has also been an associate researcher at the Centre d'Études et de Documentation Economiques, Juridiques et Sociales, in Cairo. He is the author of Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia (2011), named book of the year in 2011 on Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel. He also co-authored Al-Qaida in its Own Words (2008) and The Meccan Rebellion (2011). His articles have appeared in journals such as the Middle East Journal and the International Journal of Middle East Studies.