​Welcome! ​

I am an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University. I was previously an assistant professor of political science at Yale University and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Middle East Initiative.

My research focuses on the politics of authoritarianism and religion in the Middle East. My first book, After Repression: How Polarization Derails Democratic Transition, was published by Princeton University Press. It received the 2022 Robert A. Dahl Award, for scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy, as well as an honorable mention for the 2022 Gregory Luebbert Book Award, for the best book in the field of comparative politics, both from the American Political Science Association.

I'm currently working on a book on activists exiled after the Arab Spring uprisings. I investigate the experience of exile and how exiles influence politics back home. During AY2022-2023, I will be based in Berlin, Germany at the WZB's Center for Civil Society Research for this project thanks to support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

My CV is available here and you can reach me at enugent at princeton dot edu.