Elizabeth Nugent will join the Princeton University Department of Politics this fall as an assistant professor.

Nugent comes to Princeton from Yale, where she is currently an assistant professor of political science. An expert on Middle East politics, her research focuses on political behavior in authoritarian contexts, religion and politics, and the origins of coercive institutions.

"Liz Nugent is a leading scholar of comparative democratization," said Rafaela Dancygier, professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton and the chair of the search committee that recommended Nugent's hire to the faculty. "Her research makes exciting contributions to a variety of fields, including authoritarianism and democratization, political psychology, and Middle Eastern Politics."

Nugent's book After Repression: How Polarization Derails Democratic Transition (Princeton University Press, 2020) is an impressive study of Egypt and Tunisia during and after the 2010 Arab Spring. The monograph "draws on psychological mechanisms and historical dynamics to explain why these two countries took different paths during and after the Arab Spring," Dancygier explained. "This book, along with her current work on exile activism, will be of great interest to our students and faculty."

Nugent completed her PhD at Princeton University in 2017 and spent a year at the Harvard Middle East Initiative as a Postdoctoral Fellow before starting at Yale in 2018. Her appointment will begin July 1, 2022.