Joshua Stacher
Joshua A. Stacher is an American political scientist and scholar of Middle East politics, authoritarianism, and social movements.
Background and education
Joshua Stacher received his undergraduate degree at Washington and Jefferson College in 1998, having majored in History and English. He subsequently studied comparative politics and Middle Eastern Islamist movements at The [American University in Cairo], there receiving his master's in Political Science in 2002.In 2007 Stacher received his doctorate from the University of St. Andrews School of International Relations. His thesis was entitled “Adapting Authoritarianism: Institutions and Co-optation in Egypt and Syria”. He subsequently served as Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, in Syracuse New York. In 2008 Stacher became Associate Professor of Political Science at Kent State University, Ohio.
Stacher speaks Arabic at the advanced to fluent level.
Published research
Stacher's peer-reviewed literature focuses on Egyptian politics and the relationship between authoritarianism, opposition parties and social movements, and political culture. Stacher has taken issue with the idea that deep-seated cultural or historical factors give Egyptians an inherently anti-democratic political culture. Instead he has attempted to show that Egypt's political culture is characterized by public apathy caused by the authoritarian nature of the state. Stacher has illustrated various ways in with the Egyptian government has acted to repress or frustrate opposition parties in order to retain power, while nominally allowing electoral choice.Stacher is currently at work on a book "that compares institutions and co-optation to explain authoritarian durability in Egypt and Syria".