He specializes in contemporary political theory and the history of political philosophy. Abizadeh holds an M.Phil. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. His research focuses on democratic theory and questions of identity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism; immigration and border control; the relation between the passions, rhetoric, discourse, practical reason, and politics; Habermas and discourse ethics; and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy, particularly Hobbes and Rousseau.