I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. My research centers on authoritarian politics, institutions, and elite powersharing. 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. I have also published articles on authoritarian ruling parties, rebel regimes, opposition cooptation, term limit evasion, and leadership succession. My new work focuses on autocratic backsliding and executive aggrandizement in non-democracies. 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, British Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Theoretical Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Columbia Law Review, and Studies in Comparative International Development.
Ph.D. in Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
M.A. in Economics, University of California, Berkeley