Ferdinand Eibl

Dr. Ferdinand Eibl is a Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at King's College London, affiliated with the Department of Political Economy, School of Politics & Economics, and the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. He holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and has expertise in the political economy of authoritarian rule in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). His research focuses on distributive politics, crony capitalism, civil-military relations, and social policies in MENA. He is the author of Social Dictatorships: The Political Economy of the Welfare State in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Education: PhD in Politics from the University of Oxford; MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies (Oxford); BA in Political Science from the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and IEP Rennes.

Research Interests: Authoritarian political economy, distributive politics, coup-proofing strategies, regional inequality in Tunisia, and the electoral sociology of Islamism. Regional expertise includes Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt.

Awarded a British Academy grant (2018-2021) for the project All Roads Lead to Mahdia: The Political Economy of Regional Inequality in Tunisia.

Teaching includes modules on the political economy of the Middle East and authoritarianism. He advises PhD students on topics like distributive politics in the Global South and civil-military relations.

Active in research groups: Quantitative Political Economy, Global South Research Group, Comparative Politics, and Centre for Conflict & Health Research.