Erica De Bruin

I am an Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College, where I study international security and civil-military relations. I am particularly interested in understanding the dynamics of military coups, the connections between different forms of political violence, and the conditions under which civilians support the armed groups that seek to govern their territory. My research has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution and Foreign Affairs online, and has been supported the National Science Foundation and International Peace Research Association Foundation.

I am currently working on a book manuscript, How to Prevent Coups d’état: Coercive Institutions and Regime Survival, as well as a new project on the determinants of Civilian Support for Criminal and Political Armed Groups.

I received my PhD from the Department of Political Science at Yale University in 2014, and a BA from Columbia University in 2004. I worked previously as a Research Associate in U.S. Foreign Policy and International Law at the Council on Foreign Relations and as a Research Associate in the Fellows Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.

At Hamilton, I teach courses in international relations, including international security, civil-military relations, civil war, and U.S. foreign policy. I also organize the Women in Political Science lecture series.