Professor King is a comparativist with a particular focus on the Middle East and North Africa. He teaches the following courses: Introduction to Comparative Politics, the Politics of North Africa, Authoritarianism in Comparative Perspective, The Middle East in Comparative Perspective, Islam and Democracy, and Politics of the Developing World.

Professor King is the author of Liberalization Against Democracy: The Local Politics of Economic Reform in Tunisia (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2003), The New Authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2010), The Arab Winter: Democratic Consolidation, Civil War, and Radical Islamists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). He co-edited, The Lure of Authoritarianism: The Magreb after the Arab Spring (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019).