About Me

I’m an associate professor in the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida. Prior to joining UCF in the fall of 2014, I received my PhD from the University of Kentucky and served as an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. I have published widely on various aspects of political instability, including on international conflict, civil war, peacekeeping, democratization, and military coups. I am currently managing the Global Instances of Coups, Rulers, Elections, and Irregular Governance (REIGN) dataset, as well as the closely-related CoupCast project.

The aim of this website is to advertise relevant data, as well as contribute to the creation and promotion of collaborative efforts and individual scholarship from those interested in the study of various forms of political instability. As the themes on the website indicate, this primarily centers on the issues of dictatorship and military insubordination, particularly insubordination that is of political relevance. This usually means one of two things, either coups that aim to change political leadership or organized insubordination that has implications beyond the inner workings of the armed forces.