Kristin Fabbe is a full-time professor at the European University Institute, holding the Chair in Business and Comparative Politics at the Florence School of Transnational Governance. She is also the Director of Florence STG Executive Education.
Kristin researches in the field of comparative politics, with a regional focus on Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Her work explores the determinants of social cohesion and societal ruptures, and especially the relationship between state-driven development strategies and identity politics. She also works on issues of migration governance and comparative political economy.
Kristin has published widely on topics including modernization, religion-state relations, migration governance, the politics of conflict and transitional justice, and comparative political development. Her work has appeared in leading academic journals, numerous edited volume collections, and in public intellectual outlets. She is an active member of the American Political Science Association and has served on numerous professional and research prize committees in the discipline.
Her book Disciple of the State: Religion and State-building in the Former Ottoman World was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019 and released in Turkish translation in 2023 by Fol Kitap under the title Devletin Müritleri: Eski Osmanlı Coğrafyasında Devlet İnşası ve Din.
Kristin formerly served as Jakurski Family Associate Professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School, where she taught in the MBA and in executive education programs, developing a number of case studies on business and government in emerging markets. She was also an Associate Professor in the Government Department at Claremont McKenna College.
She has consulted in the private and public sectors. Most recently she has worked as an advisor to the Minister of Migration and Asylum in Greece, an international consultant at the International Organization for Migration, and a technical expert on projects for DG-REFORM.
She holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Political Science), an MSc from the London School of Economics (History and Theory of International Relations), and a BA in History from Lewis and Clark College.