Eugene Finkel is Kenneth H. Keller Associate Professor of International Affairs
Academic and Faculty Liaison at SAIS Europe


Eugene (Evgeny) Finkel works at the intersection of political science and history. He was born in Ukraine and grew up in Israel. Finkel received a BA in Political Science and International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a PhD in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on how institutions and individuals respond to extreme situations: mass violence, state collapse, and rapid change.

Finkel is the author of Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2017) and, together with Scott Gehlbach, of Reform and Rebellion in Weak States (Cambridge University Press, 2020). His next book, Bread and Autocracy: Food, Politics and Security in Putin’s Russia is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, East European Politics and Societies, Slavic Review, and several other journals and edited volumes. Finkel also published articles and op-eds in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs and other outlets.