research

published or forthcoming papers

• Defining and Measuring Democratic Norms (with Gretchen Helmke), Annual Review of Political Science (2025).
  Abstract

  If scholars and pundits are right, the erosion of norms in the United States and abroad poses a significant danger to democracy. Understanding what exactly norms are, what makes them democratic, and how best to measure them is thus essential for generating and evaluating explanations of how such norms weaken and collapse. Our article addresses each of these key elements. On the conceptual front, we argue for more precision in defining norms and more consideration in labeling them as democratic. On the measurement front, we develop a general utility function and use it to evaluate the various methodological strategies that researchers have deployed to causally identify democratic norms. In between, we synthesize the fast-growing literature on norms and democratic backsliding using a fourfold typology, with transgressors and enforcers on one dimension and political elites and citizens on the other. We conclude by pinpointing several new areas for future research.

working papers

• The Logic of Parallel Armies
  Abstract

  All polities require armed forces to protect themselves against external threats. In authoritarian regimes, this generates an internal threat for rulers since these militaries possess both the capability and incentive to launch a coup. Existing scholarship points towards the creation of a single loyal (but incompetent) army as a potential solution to this guardianship dilemma. Developing a formal model, I demonstrate that loyalty is not necessary provided the ruler may create multiple armies to counterbalance each other. Contrary to existing theory, this counterbalancing increases the autocrat's ability to stave off foreign threats while potentially increasing the risk of a coup. This parallel army structure is most likely when rulers have relatively high resource budgets but low personal strength. I show how the model's findings help explain the force discrepancy between parallel armies as well as their usage in both historical empires and contemporary autocracies.

• Conquest on a Line