Erica De Bruin

I am an Associate Professor of Government at Hamilton College. In the 2023-2024 academic year, I will be a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

My research and teaching focus on civil-military relations, coups and democratic backsliding, civil war, and policing. I am the author of How to Prevent Coups d’état: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival (Cornell University Press, 2020), and have published articles in the Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, PS: Political Science & Politics, Armed Forces and Society, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Political Violence at a Glance, and elsewhere. My work and expert commentary have been featured in The New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Vox, Slate, Bloomberg, and MSNBC, among other places.

My current research, supported by two grants from the National Science Foundation, focuses on the causes and consequences of global police militarization and armed group governance in Colombia. My work has also been funded by grants from the American Political Science Association’s Centennial Center, Spencer Foundation, Stanton Foundation, and International Peace Research Association Foundation.

I received a 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. During the 2020-2021 academic year, I was a Non-Resident Fellow at the Modern War Institute at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

At Hamilton, I direct the Justice and Security Program at the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, and teach courses in international security, civil-military relations, civil war, nuclear politics, and policing.