My research focuses on the Gulf monarchies, including Kuwait. I write on the political development of monarchical regimes, the resource curse and Gulf politics.

I received my Ph.D. from UCLA in 1997 and joined the political science department at Georgia State University in 1998. My undergraduate degree is from the University of Washington. I am the author of All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies (SUNY, 1999) and The Wages of Oil (Cornell, 2014).

I served as chair of the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University from 2017 to 2023, and as Director of the Middle East Institute from 2009 to 2013.