Tyler Parker

Tyler Parker received his Ph.D. in Political Science (International Politics major) from Boston College in August 2023. His dissertation analyzes the competitive status-seeking strategies of the six GCC governments to explain their variations in support to United States (US) foreign policy plans in the broader Middle East since the early 1990s. He has conducted research interviews in Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Parker received a B.A. in Arabic from The Ohio State University and a M.A. in Islamic and Near Eastern Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. He taught elementary and intermediate Modern Standard Arabic at WashU and at the Arab American Language Institute in Meknes, Morocco.

His areas of specialization include governance, politics, and security in the GCC states and Yemen; Arabic-language content and discourse analysis; and the alliance politics of countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

• International Relations theory
• Comparative Politics methods
• Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf
• US foreign policy in the Middle East

• “The Power of Partnerships: Explaining Oman’s Independent Foreign Policy.” The Middle East Journal (Forthcoming).
• “Frame Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer: How al-Masra Newspaper Imagines Individuals,” with Nihad Aboud, Mark Berlin, and Sam Biasi. Behavior Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression (Forthcoming).
• “Jihadist Journalism: Analyzing the Geographic Coverage of al-Masra Newspaper,” with Mark Berlin and Sam Biasi. Terrorism and Political Violence (June 15, 2022).
• “Yemen’s Houthi movement stepped up its attacks. That complicates U.S. policy in the region.” Washington Post, The Monkey Cage (February 1, 2022).
• “Transforming Yemen? Divergent Saudi and Emirati Intervention Policies.” Middle East Policy volume 28, no. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2021): 159-171.
• “President Biden’s Yemen Policy: From Pronouncements to Peace?” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (April 9, 2021).
• “Why Secession Isn’t Likely for South Yemen.” Political Violence at a Glance (August 3, 2020).
• Yemen’s Proxy Wars Explained, with Peter Krause. Political Violence at a Glance (March 26, 2020).
• "Poetic Propaganda: Al Qaeda’s Acapella Anthems in Yemen and Beyond.” Al Noor volume 12, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 22-31.
• "South of Suez: Political Islam in Sudan and Yemen since 1968.” The Common Reader (July 6, 2018).

• The Omar A. Aggad Travel and Research Fellowship, Boston College (2022 and 2020)
• Political Science Department Award for Graduate Teaching Excellence, Boston College (2020)