I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. 

My research centers on authoritarian politics, institutions, and elite power sharing. My book, Constraining Dictatorship: From Personalized Rule to Institutionalized Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2020), examines how executive constraints become established in dictatorships, particularly within constitutions and presidential cabinets. It won the Riker Book Prize and was listed as a 2021 Best Book by Foreign Affairs.

I have also published articles on authoritarian ruling parties, rebel regimes, opposition cooptation, term limit evasion, and leadership succession. Some of my new work focuses on democratic backsliding. I take a political economy approach to comparative authoritarianism and have a regional focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

My work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Theoretical Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Columbia Law Review, and Studies in Comparative International Development. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and also hold a M.A. in Economics from UC Berkeley.

Contact:
ameng@virginia.edu
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Office: S284 Gibson Hall
University of Virginia
Department of Politics
1540 Jefferson Park Ave
Charlottesville, VA 22903