M. Tahir Kilavuz is currently a visiting fellow and a former Postdoctoral research fellow (2019-2020) at the Middle East Initiative. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Marmara University
 
His research interests include authoritarianism, regime change, religion and politics, coup d’état, survey analysis, mixed methods research and experimental design, both in the MENA and in the cross-regional setting. More specifically, he examines durability of authoritarian regimes and transitions both to other types of dictatorship and to democracy, with a particular emphasis on how institutions shape and constrain the behavior of political regimes and the masses. His works are published in journals such as American Political Science Review, Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, and Political Studies among others. In his book project, he focuses on the factors behind political regime persistence and change in the MENA comprehensively, both in terms of time period and geographical coverage. He explains the impact of opposition challenges during democratization attempts with experimental and qualitative evidence from the case studies of Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia. 

He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame, an MA from Koc University, and a BA from Istanbul Bilgi University. Over the years, he has studied/carried out research in Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.