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Fields of Interest:

Comparative Politics; Middle East

Education: Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, Department of Government

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Dr. Matt Buehler is Chair of Middle East Studies at the University of Tennessee. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, and a Senior Global Security Fellow at the Howard H. Baker Jr. School for Public Policy and Public Affairs. He served as Vice Chair of the American Political Science Association’s Middle East and North Africa section from 2020 to 2022. Buehler’s research area is comparative and international politics of the Middle East and North Africa. He has been traveling regularly to the Arab world since 2006, completing over five years of fieldwork and Arabic training in the region. Buehler has held research fellowships at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Middle East Initiative in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and also Georgetown University in Qatar’s Center for International and Regional Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

As Chair of Middle East Studies, Dr. Buehler organized a 215-person formal fundraiser—the Middle East Gala—at the Cherokee Country Club in 2023 with the Arab American Club of Knoxville (AACK). The gala aimed to increase the size of the AACK’s endowment at the University of Tennessee, first created in 2018, to fund travel scholarships for undergraduate or graduate students to go to Arab countries for study abroad, research, Arabic study, archeological digs, and other educational activities. Dr. Buehler and the AACK succeeded in increasing the endowment from $25,000 to around $120,000. The endowment now provides in perpetuity two annual $2000 student travel scholarships.

Buehler is the author of Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa (Syracuse University Press, 2018). In his book, Buehler explores the conditions under which stable, enduring coalitions are built to contest authoritarian regimes, marshaling evidence from pacts between North Africa’s Islamists and leftists.  Why Alliances Fail received the 2019 SERMEISS (Southeast Regional Middle East and Islamic Studies Society) book prize, which “recognizes outstanding scholarship in Middle Eastern or Islamic studies in any academic discipline in the social sciences or humanities from any time period.” The book has been reviewed in Perspectives on Politics, Politics and Religion, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of North African Studies, Mediterranean Politics, and Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos. In 2018, Buehler received an Early Career Excellence in Research and Creative Achievement Award from the University of Tennessee, an award given annually to two junior faculty members across all disciplines.

Primarily a scholar of North African politics and society, Buehler’s research has focused on the topics of democratization, authoritarianism, Islamist parties, public opinion research, nuclear nonproliferation, and migration.  Buehler’s research has appeared in generalist political science journals, like International Studies Quarterly and Political Research Quarterly, and also journals specialized in Middle East politics. He serves as editor of the peer-reviewed journal Mediterranean Politics and Edinburgh Studies of the Maghreb, an Edinburgh University Press book series. He speaks Arabic with professional fluency, and studied it primarily at the University of Damascus, Syria. He has lived and researched in numerous Arab countries, including Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Syria, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. He has traveled to other countries of the Middle East such as Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Oman, Kuwait, and Turkey. He received his doctorate in government from the University of Texas at Austin.

Selected Publications

Peer Reviewed Book

• Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2018), 304 pp.
  • 2019 SERMEISS Book Award (Southeast Regional Middle East & Islamic Studies Society)
  • Reviewed by Perspectives on Politics, Politics and Religion, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of North African Studies, Mediterranean Politics, and Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos.

Peer Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

“Who Would Trust a Nuclear Umbrella? An Original Survey Gauging Public Confidence in Future Nuclear Guarantees in Morocco.” (with Arjun Banerjee). The Nonproliferation Review. Forthcoming.

“Thy Neighbor’s Gendarme? How Citizens of Buffer States in North Africa View European Border Security Externalization.” (with Kristin Fabbe and Eleni Kyrkopoulou). Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. Forthcoming.

“Surveying the Landscape of Labor Market Threat Perceptions from Migration: Evidence from Attitudes toward Sub-Saharan African Migrants in Morocco.” (with Kristin Fabbe and Eleni Kyrkopoulou). Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) Review, Vol. 76, No. 4 (2023), pp. 748-773.

“Marxists of the Maghreb: Leftists Parties and Movements of North Africa.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (with Matthew R. Jones) (2023), pp. 1-22.

“The International Sources of Prejudice toward Shi‘a in the Middle East and North Africa: Original Survey Evidence from Morocco.” (with Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl). Mediterranean Politics. Vol. 28, No. 3 (2023), pp. 463-491.

“Divergent Opposition to Sub-Saharan African and Arab Migrants in Morocco’s Casablanca Region: Prejudice from the Pocketbook?” (with Kyung Joon Han). British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 48, No. 3 (2021), pp. 492-514.

“Community-level Postmaterialism and Anti-Migrant Attitudes: An Original Survey on Opposition to Sub-Saharan African Migrants in the Middle East.” (with Kristin Fabbe and Kyung Joon Han). International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 3 (2020), pp. 669-683.

“How Does Legalization Alter Islamists’ Electoral Strategies? A Comparative Study of Mauritania’s Tawassoul Party in the 2006 and 2013 Local Elections.” L’Année du Maghreb, Vol. 23 (2020), pp. 303-323.

“Judges, Bribes, and Verdicts: How Court Experience Reshapes Attitudes about Judicial Corruption among Morocco’s Most Marginalized.” Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2020), pp. 650-672.

“Who Endorses Amnesty? An Original Survey from Morocco’s Casablanca Region Assessing Citizen Support for Regularizing Clandestine Migrants.” (with Kyung Joon Han). Review of Middle East Studies (RoMES), Vol. 52, No. 2 (2018), pp. 283-298.  

“The Autocrat’s Advisors: Opening the Black-Box of Ruling Coalitions in Tunisia’s Authoritarian Regime.” (with Mehdi Ayari). Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 4 (2018), pp. 330-346.

 “Do You Have ‘Connections’ at the Courthouse? An Original Survey on Informal Influence and Judicial Rulings in Morocco.” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 4 (2016), pp. 760-772.

“Continuity through Co-optation: Rural Politics and Regime Resilience in Morocco and Mauritania.” Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2015), pp. 364-385.

“Labor Demands, Regime Concessions: Moroccan Unions and the Arab Uprisings.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (2015), pp. 88-103.

“The Threat to ‘Un-Moderate’: Moroccan Islamists and the Arab Spring.” Middle East Law and Governance, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2013), pp. 1-27.

“Safety-Valve Elections in the Arab Spring: The Weakening (and Resurgence) of Morocco’s Islamist Opposition Party.” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2013), pp. 137-156.

“Beards, Mustaches, and Power: The Traits of Masculine Leadership in Morocco” in Local Governance in the Middle East and North Africa (with Freddy Gergis), University of Michigan Press (eds., Ellen Lust and Kristen Kao). Conditionally accepted.

“The Functions of Authoritarian Elections: Symbolism, Safety Values, and Clientelism,” in Francesco Cavatorta and Valeria Resta (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Elections in the Middle East and North Africa. (with Calista Boyd). Routledge, 2023, pp. 13-25

“Urban Bias, Rural Embeddedness: Using the Rural-Urban Divide to Explain Political Party Organizational and Ideological Development in the MENA,” in Francesco Cavatorta, Lise Storm, and Valeria Resta (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Political Parties in the Middle East and North Africa. (with Allison Critcher). Routledge, 2021, pp. 307-318. 

“Integrating African Migrants? Gauging Citizen Opposition to Migrant Resettlement in Morocco’s Casablanca region,” in Zahra Babar (ed.), Mobility and Forced Displacement in the Middle East (with Kyung Joon Han).  Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 165-186.

“Mauritania’s Uprisings and Aftermath,” in Stephen King and Abdeslam Maghraoui (eds.), The Lure of Authoritarianism: The Maghreb after the Arab Spring. (with Mehdi Ayari). Indiana University Press, 2019, pp. 283-307.

“Labor Protest in Morocco,” in Osama Abi-Mershed (ed.), Social Currents in North Africa: Culture and Governance after the Arab Spring. Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 51-72.

“Regime Resilience and the Arab Uprisings,” in Richard Gillespie and Frederic Volpi (eds.), Handbook of Mediterranean Politics. (with Amnah Ibraheem). Routledge, 2017, pp. 207-217.

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