Drew Kinney

• 2025 Fall
  • IRP 103 International Relations Living Learning Community
  • IRP 400 Selected Topics - Causes of Conflict
  • IRP 300 Selected Topics - Global Govern & Organizations
• 2025 Summer
  • IRP 201 International Relations Research Methods
• 2025 Spring
  • IRP 400 Selected Topics - Causes of Conflict
  • IRP 300 Selected Topics - Global Govern & Organizations
• 2024 Fall
  • IRP 103 International Relations Living Learning Community
  • IRP 400 Selected Topics - Causes of Conflict
  • IRP 300 Selected Topics - Middle East Intl Relations
• 2024 Spring
  • IRP 495 Distinction in International Relations Seminar
  • IRP 400 Selected Topics - Causes of Conflict
  • IRP 300 Selected Topics - Global Govern & Organizations
• 2023 Fall
  • HST 336 America and the Middle East
  • IRP 103 International Relations Living Learning Community
  • IRP 300 Selected Topics - Civil-Military Relations

Drew Kinney is an assistant teaching professor of international relations. He teaches courses in International Relations of the Middle East, Causes of Conflict, Global Governance, America and the Middle East, and Civil-Military Relations.

Kinney’s research focuses on why civilian elites promote military coups d’état in the modern Middle East. His book project, Politicians at Arms, uses Arabic language memoirs, as well as reports of the British Foreign Office and French Ministère des Affaires étrangères, to understand why Syrian and Iraqi party leaders backed more than 40 coups in the post-colonial era.

His research has been published in Armed Forces & Society, International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, and Democratization. He has also published commentary in War on the Rocks, The Washington Post, and Jadaliyya.

Kinney received a Ph.D. in political science from the Maxwell School in 2018. Before returning to Syracuse, he taught at St. John Fisher College (his alma mater), Tulane University and Colgate University.

• Journal Articles
  • Kinney, D., Grewal, S., "What’s in a Name? Experimental Evidence of the Coup Taboo in Egypt and Tunisia." In Democratization. Firstview, 2022.
  • Kinney, D., "Sharing Saddles: Oligarchs and Officers on Horseback in Egypt and Tunisia." International Studies Quarterly, 2021.
  • Kinney, D., "Politicians at Arms: Civilian Recruitment of Soldiers for Middle East Coups." Armed Forces & Society , 2019.
  • Kinney, D., "A Pyrrhic Victory? Expectations and Reality in the Wake of Tunisia’s Elections." Democracy & Society, 2019.
  • Kinney, D., "Civilian Actors in the Turkish Military Drama of July 2016." Eastern Mediterranean Policy Note, 2016.
• Book Chapter
  • Kinney, D. H., "Civilian Coup Advocacy." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Nassif, H. B., Thompson, W. (eds.) Oxford University Press, 2021.
• Book Reviews
  • Kinney, D., "Watermelon Democracy: Egypt's Turbulent Transition by Joshua Stacher." The Middle East Journal, 2020.
  • Kinney, D., "Revolts and the Military in the Arab Spring by Sean Burns." eview of Middle East Studies, 2019.
• Essay
  • Kinney, D., Powell, J. and Bruin, E. D., "Trump-World on Horseback: Conservative Coup Advocacy in the United States." International Studies Review , 2022.
• Magazine/Trade Publications
  • Kinney, D., "Learning from the Banality of Bolivia’s Coup." War on the Rocks, 2020.
  • Kinney, D., "The Invisible Line: Soldiers and Civilians in the Middle East." Jadaliyya, 2018.
• Newspaper Article
  • Kinney, D., "What the history of coups in the Middle East tells us about Venezuela." The Washington Post, 2019.
• Podcast
  • Kinney, D., "Discussion of Sharing Saddles." In Sharing Saddles: Oligarchs and Officers on Horseback. POMEPS Podcast, hosted by Marc Lynch, 2021.

APSA Annual Meeting (2020)

Panel on Military Politics, MESA Annual Meeting (2020)

Panel on Arab Militaries, MESA Annual Meeting (2019)

Panel on Democratization, APSA Annual Meeting (2019)

The Tunis Exchange (2019)