Articles
Violent Origins and Authoritarian Order: Divergent Trajectories after Successful Rebellions (with Killian Clarke and Jack Paine). 2025. Conditionally accepted at the American Political Science Review.
Measuring Democratic Backsliding. 2024. PS: Political Science & Politics. Lead article as part of a special issue on
backsliding. (with Andrew Little)
- Coverage in The New York Times
Measuring Democratic Backsliding. 2024. PS: Political Science & Politics. Lead article as part of a special issue on
backsliding. (with Andrew Little)
- Response piece: What We Do and Do Not Know about Democratic Backsliding. 2024. PS: Political Science & Politics. (with Andrew Little)
- Access the entire special issue here!
- Data and replication files here.
- Coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, The Progress Network, Salon, Morgenbladet, Folha de S. Paulo, Estado, Positive News, Real Clear Science, Ufuhamu Africa podcast, Not Another Politics podcast, The Good Fight podcast
Authoritarian Power Sharing: Concepts, Mechanisms, and Strategies. 2023. Annual Review of Political Science. (with Jack Paine and Robert Powell).
Power Sharing and Authoritarian Stability: How Rebel Regimes Solve the Guardianship Dilemma. 2022. American Political Science Review 116(4): 1208-1225. (with Jack Paine).
Democratic Subversion: Elite Cooptation and Opposition Fragmentation. 2021. American Political Science Review 115(4): 1358-1372. (with Leonardo Arriola and Jed DeVaro)
Winning the Game of Thrones: Leadership Succession in Modern Autocracies. 2021. Journal of Conflict Resolution 65(5): 950-981.
Ruling Parties in Authoritarian Regimes: Rethinking Institutional Strength. 2021. British Journal of Political Science 51(2): 526-540.
- Data and replication files here.
The Law and Politics of Presidential Term Limit Evasion. 2020. Columbia Law Review 120(1): 1-77. (with Mila Versteeg, Tim Horley, Mauricio Gium, and Marilyn Guirguis)
- Coverage in The New York Times
- Data files here.
Accessing the State: Executive Constraints and Credible Commitment in Dictatorships. 2019. The Journal of Theoretical Politics 33(4): 568-599.
- 2016 Best Paper Award, Comparative Democratization Section of the American Political Science Association
Gerrymandering Opposition: Minority-Concentrated Districts and Electoral Competition in Mexico. 2017. Studies In Comparative International Development 52:64-86. (with Brian Palmer-Rubin)
Handbook Chapters
Quantitative Approaches to Study Authoritarianism. 2024. Forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Authoritarian Politics, edited by Anne Wolf. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Work in Progress
Built to Last: How Founding Origins Shape Authoritarian Survival (Book manuscript with Killian Clarke and Jack Paine)
Born This Way: Authoritarian Origins and Regime Survival (with Killian Clarke and Jack Paine)
Presidential Election Concessions (with Andrew Little). Under review.
Rules to Live (and Die) By: Introducing the Global Succession Rules Dataset (with Edward Goldring). Under review.
Born This Way: Authoritarian Origins and Regime Survival (with Killian Clarke and Jack Paine)
Presidential Election Concessions (with Andrew Little). Under review.
Rules to Live (and Die) By: Introducing the Global Succession Rules Dataset (with Edward Goldring). Under review.
Other Writing
Book review of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman. 2022. Perspectives on Politics 20(4): 1500-1502.
The Targaryens struggle with a 'crown prince problem,' like all authoritarians. Washington Post, The Monkey Cage. August 28, 2022. (with Andrej Kokkonen, Jorgen Moller, and Anders Sundell).
In Memoriam: Robert L. Powell. International Organization. 2022. (with James Fearon, David Lake, and Jack Paine).
Democratisation and dictatorship revisited. A review of Shock to the System: Coups, Elections, and War on the Road to Democratization by Michael K. Miller. 2022. European Political Science.
Author Exchange with Ken Opalo for Constraining Dictatorship. 2021. Democracy and Autocracy. 19(1): 16-22.