Professor Fabbe’s research interests center on identity politics, social resilience, historical institutionalism, political culture, and the political economy of development. Her regional expertise is in the Middle East and southeastern Europe.
Kristin E. Fabbe
Associate Professor of Business Administration
Associate Professor of Business Administration
Unit
Contact Information
(617) 495-5883
Kristin Fabbe is an associate professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit, where she has taught the course of the same name in the MBA required curriculum since joining the faculty. She also teaches in several executive education programs, including the Agribusiness Seminar and SELPME (Senior Executive Leadership Management Program, Middle East). Her primary expertise is in comparative politics, with a regional focus on the Middle East and southeastern Europe.
Kristin is a faculty affiliate at the Middle East Initiative at the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center, at the Harvard Center for Middle East Studies, and the Harvard Center for European Studies. She also sits on the steering committee of the AlWaleed Islamic Studies Program and is an Associate Editor at the Review of Middle East Studies.
In her research, Professor Fabbe seeks to understand the relationship between state-driven development strategies and identity politics. Her first book, Disciples of the State: Religion and State-Building in the Former Ottoman World (Cambridge University Press, 2019) examines the role of religious elites, institutions, and attachments in modernization initiatives in Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. She is currently researching a second major project that studies how societies respond to crises, particularly economic shocks, severe austerity measures, and large demographic changes. In her other work Kristin examines legacies of violence, post-conflict reconciliation, refugees and forced-migration, and state-business relations. Towards this end she has conducted and consulted on a number of large surveys and field projects in the MENA including Iraq, Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. This work has been published in numerous academic journals. Her opinion pieces on regional issues have been published in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.
Professor Fabbe received her PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also holds an MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics and a BA in history from Lewis and Clark College. Before joining HBS, she was an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.
- Books
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- Fabbe, Kristin. Disciples of the State?: Religion and State-Building in the Former Ottoman World. Cambridge University Press, 2019. View Details
- Journal Articles
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- Buehler, Matt, Kristin Fabbe, and Kyung Joon Han. "Community-Level Postmaterialism and Anti-Migrant Attitudes: An Original Survey on Opposition to Sub-Saharan African Migrants in the Middle East." International Studies Quarterly 64, no. 3 (September 2020): 669–683. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, and Matthew Franklin Cancian. "Informal Institutions and Survey Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." PS: Political Science & Politics 52, no. 3 (July 2019): 485–489. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, Chad Hazlett, and Tolga Sınmazdemir. "A Persuasive Peace: Syrian Refugees' Attitudes Towards Compromise and Civil War Termination." Journal of Peace Research 56, no. 1 (January 2019): 103–117. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, and Tolga Sınmazdemir. "Syrian Refugees in Turkey and the Politics of Post Conflict Reconciliation." Review of Middle East Studies 52, no. 2 (November 2018): 249–262. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Review of Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report, by Saba Mahmood." Journal of Church and State 58, no. 4 (Fall 2016): 753–755. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Review Essay on 'The Politics of Nation-Building: Making of Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities' by Harris Mylonas." Nationalities Papers 44, no. 3 (May 2016): 488–490. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Doing More with Less: the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkish Elections, and the Uncertain Future of Turkish Politics." Nationalities Papers 39, no. 5 (September 2011): 657–666. View Details
- Boduszyński, Mieczysław, Kristin Fabbe, and Christopher Lamont. "After the Arab Spring: Are Secular Parties the Answer?" Journal of Democracy 26, no. 4 (October 2015): 125–139. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Historical Legacies, Modern Conflicts: State Consolidation and Religious Pluralism in Greece and Turkey." Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 13, no. 3 (2013): 435–453. View Details
- Book Chapters
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- Fabbe, Kristin. "The Republic of Turkey." Chap. 14 in Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa: Development, Democracy, and Dictatorship. 9th ed. Edited by Sean Yom. New York: Routledge, 2019. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, Űmit Őzlale, and Efe Murat Balikçioğlu. "Islamic Capitalism and the Rise of Religious-Conservative Big Business." Chap. 5 in Business, Ethics and Institutions: The Evolution of Turkish Capitalism in Global Perspectives, edited by Asli M. Colpan and G. Jones, 97–122. New York: Routledge, 2019. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, and Efe M. Balıkçıoğlu. "Political Islam." Chap. 4 in The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics, edited by Alpaslan Özerdem and Matthew Whiting. Routledge, 2019. View Details
- Working Papers
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- Fabbe, Kristin, Eleni Kyrkopoulou, Konstantinos Matakos, and Asli Unan. "Fairness or Control: What Determines Elected Local Leaders’ Support for Hosting Refugees in Their Community?" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-088, February 2021. View Details
- Cases and Teaching Materials
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- Fabbe, Kristin. "Iraq: A Land Between Two Rivers." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 719-066, March 2019. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, and Natalie Kindred. "OCP Group." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 719-063, March 2019. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, and Natalie Kindred. "Almarai Company: Milk and Modernization in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 719-064, February 2019. View Details
- Cavallo, Alberto, Kristin Fabbe, Mattias Fibiger, Jeremy Friedman, Reshmaan Hussam, Vincent Pons, and Matthew Weinzierl. "The BGIE Twenty (2021 version)." Harvard Business School Technical Note 718-032, December 2017. (Revised December 2020.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, Natalie Kindred, and Safwan Al-Amin. "Saudi Arabia: A Brief Background." Harvard Business School Technical Note 719-043, November 2018. (Revised April 2019.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Civil Society." Harvard Business School Technical Note 719-041, November 2018. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Modernization." Harvard Business School Technical Note 719-040, November 2018. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, Safwan Al-Amin, Esel Cekin, and Natalie Kindred. "Almarai Company: Milk and Modernization in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." Harvard Business School Case 719-020, November 2018. (Revised May 2019.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, and Alpana Thapar. "Morocco." Harvard Business School Case 718-056, March 2018. (Revised January 2019.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, Sophus Reinert, and Nathan Cisneros. "Crescent Petroleum—Dana Gas: Negotiate, Mediate, Arbitrate." Harvard Business School Case 718-052, February 2018. (Revised May 2018.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, Forest Reinhardt, Natalie Kindred, and Alpana Thapar. "OCP Group." Harvard Business School Case 718-002, December 2017. (Revised December 2018.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Iraq: A Land Between Two Rivers." Harvard Business School Case 717-033, February 2017. (Revised January 2019.) View Details
- Other Publications and Materials
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- Fabbe, Kristin. "Review of The New Turkey and Its Discontents by Simon A. Waldman & Emre Caliskan." International Journal of Middle East Studies 51, no. 3 (August 2019): 516–518. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp 350. $27.95 paper. ISBN: 9780190668372.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin, Melanie Cammett, and Marc Lynch. "Introduction." In Social Policy in the Middle East and North Africa. No. 31. POMEPS Studies. Washington, DC: Project on Middle East Political Science, 2018. Electronic. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Review of Turkey's Difficult Journey to Democracy, by Ilter Turan." International Journal of Turkish Studies 22, no. 1 & 2 (Fall 2016): 165–168. View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Survey Instrument: 2016 Study of Syrian Refugees in Turkey." View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Forward-Facing and Behind the Scenes: Shifts in Political Islam in Post–July 15 Turkey." In Contemporary Turkish Politics. No. 22, 12–15. POMEPS Studies. Washington, DC: Project on Middle East Political Science, 2016. Electronic. (Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.) View Details
- Fabbe, Kristin. "Turkey's Secularization in Reverse?" In Rethinking Nation and Nationalism. No. 14, 17–19. POMEPS Studies. Washington, D.C.: Project on Middle East Political Science, 2015. View Details
- Research Summary
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Professor Fabbe is currently conducting fieldwork for a book project that focuses on how societies respond to crisis and how states seek to use modernization initiatives to strengthen social resilience and cohesion. Towards this end, she is researching local variation in response to adversity through an examination of economic shocks, austerity measures, and large demographic changes in post-crisis Greece.
Professor Fabbe’s first book, Disciples of the State?: Religion and State Building and in the Former Ottoman World, examines processes of strategic interaction between religion and the emergent machine of the sovereign state across the Middle East and Balkans. Her findings show that decisive victories for either the secular state or for religion are rare during modernization drives. Instead, across the region, religion-state arrangements have taken the form of intriguing amalgams that defy the conventional, dichotomous classification of secular vs. religious. There are two central arguments. First, states carved out more sovereign space in places like Greece and Turkey, where religious elites were integral to early centralizing reform and modernization processes. Second, region-wide structural constraints on the types of linkages that states managed to build with religion during modernization efforts have generated long-term repercussions. Fatefully, both state policies that seek to facilitate equality through the recognition of religious difference and state policies that seek to eradicate such difference have contributed to failures of liberal democratic consolidation.
Professor Fabbe’s second area of research focuses on individual and collective responses to violence and forced migration. Under this research stream, she has implemented large survey projects in Iraq, Turkey, and Morocco. Her work in Turkey tests the notion that violence begets violence by investigating how exposure to barrel bombing affects Syrian refugees’ attitudes toward peace and reconciliation. Her research in Iraq examines how legacies of violence shape combatants’ propensity to exhibit cognitive empathy and humanizing behavioral tendencies toward their enemies. Finally, through a nationally representative survey of Moroccan citizens, Professor Fabbe is examining the determinants of anti-migrant sentiment in the global south.
In an ongoing research stream, Professor Fabbe is studying the political economy of business development in fragile societies. Her newest project in this research stream explores the opportunities for complementarities and joint ventures between Syrian and Turkish businesses in Gaziantep, Turkey. In addition, building on extensive interviews with women business owners and a large-scale survey of female-owned businesses in Northern Iraq, another study assesses how women leverage social, political, and economic resources to launch businesses despite the absence of state-directed credit or a well-defined system of individual property rights.
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