Working Papers:

"The Protest Dilemma: The Effect of Threat of War in Sustaining Non-Democratic Regimes" (with Mariam Malashkhia) (Job Market Paper) [Under Review, American Journal of Political Science]

In non-democratic regimes protests serve as the primary means of voicing political discontent. While a growing literature examines protests, the role of external factors remains underexplored. To fill this gap, we develop a formal model of how the enemy’s war decision and the incumbent’s use of propaganda influence citizens’ protest choices. We show that even when the incumbent is undesirable, the threat of war deters mobilization, offering a novel explanation for why grievances do not always translate into protest. Thus, protest outcomes depend critically on the circumstances faced by the enemy. Citizen mobilization under such conditions also hinges on the opposition being perceived as significantly more capable than the incumbent. Finally, when the adversary is more likely to invade if the opposition is expected to come to power, heightened war threat through propaganda can sometimes paradoxically fuel mobilization. Thus, propaganda is not a universally effective tool for protest suppression.


“Politics of Non-Democracies: Fraud, Post-Election Boycotts, and Protests” (with Mariam Malashkhia) [Revise & Resubmit, American Political Science Review]

Non-democracies are often characterized by electoral manipulation and contested results. Despite a growing literature on these regimes, opposition strategies remain underexplored. To address this gap, we develop a formal model analyzing the interactions among the incumbent’s, the opposition’s, and the citizens’ decisions. We show that a boycott—forfeiting parliamentary seats—can serve as a powerful signal of the opposition’s ability, thereby mobilizing large-scale protests.  This new information explains why citizens may support the regime one day but protest the next. Thus, in contexts where the opposition faces public outreach constraints, a post-election boycott becomes one of the few available and effective strategies. Given the boycott’s significance, we explore the factors that influence this decision.

Moreover, our model offers a new perspective  on the strategic role of fraud—shaping post-election dynamics. Additionally, we argue that  peaceful transitions arise when credible threats of protests are coupled with parliamentary elections.


"The Role of International Support in Facilitating Non-Democratic Regime Change" 

Although international support is often intended to bolster regime change, I develop a formal model showing that providing such support to the opposition that boycotts election outcomes can sometimes backfire. Specifically, international assistance enables even weaker opposition to contest election results, thereby reducing the informational value of a boycott, and hence sometimes failing to galvanize large-scale mobilization. Furthermore, a pro-change donor prefers boycotts to be rare but revealing: just costly enough that only strong challengers boycott, but not so costly that boycotting is impossible.  Moreover, the minimum challenger ability at which the pro-change donor desires a boycott depends only on two factors: the rarity of strong challengers and the informational content of a boycott. By contrast, a pro-regime donor may offer either no support, making boycotts prohibitively costly, or fully support it, making them frequent and uninformative. Thus, international support for the opposition does not necessarily signal pro-change intentions. Finally, I show that international support may inadvertently increase the level of fraud employed by the incumbent.


"Political Incentives for Health Insurance Provision" 

Adverse selection in private health insurance markets generates well-known welfare losses and is a standard rationale for government intervention. Yet such intervention is shaped by electoral incentives: voters care deeply about health care, and political parties compete on promises of coverage and subsidies. This paper develops a formal model of strategic interaction between political parties, private insurers, and voters. Parties compete over the level of mandatory social insurance, financed through income taxation, while individuals can purchase additional coverage in the perfectly competitive private market. The analysis yields two main results. First, when the private market is already inefficient due to adverse selection, mandatory public insurance can either mitigate or exacerbate this inefficiency by altering the composition of the private risk pool. Thus, once political constraints are accounted for, intervention is not necessarily welfare-enhancing, even when market failure is present. Second, I characterize the welfare gap between the politically chosen and socially optimal levels of coverage and show how it varies with key economic and political parameters.


"The Effect of Internal Displacement on Political Attitudes" (with Mariam Malashkhia) 

How does war affect political attitudes? While much research on war centers on violence, the effects of displacement remain underexplored, despite over 120 million people being forcibly displaced.  This omission is significant, as displacement represents a unique form of victimization with long-lasting impacts. We address this gap by examining Georgians displaced by the 2008 Russian invasion. Using a natural experiment of administrative boundary line shift, we find that while displaced and non-displaced individuals demonstrate similar levels of support for Georgia joining NATO and the EU, displaced individuals are more likely to hold hawkish attitudes when questions are directed at those responsible for their displacement — in this case, Russia. However, displaced individuals, who have experienced violence, exhibit a heightened sense of solidarity with others who have endured similar hardships, namely with Ukrainians. Thus, war can have long-lasting effects on individuals, shaping their foreign policy preferences even without the exposure to violence.


"How did the Russo-Ukrainian War Affect Voting Behavior and Party Affiliation in the US?" (with Mariam Malashkhia) 

Per the "Almond-Lippmann consensus", the public is uninformed, has incoherent opinion on foreign policy and is irrelevant to decision making. However, after addressing the endogeneity issue, we find that support for Ukraine has a strong negative effect on identifying as a Republican. Moreover, the support for Ukraine, a foreign policy issue, has a larger effect than the variables consistently found in the literature to have a large and significant effect on party identification. As for identifying as a Democrat, the results from the probit model show that when other, potentially exogenous, variables are included as controls, the support for Ukraine has a strong, significant, and positive effect. However, when we add other, possibly endogenous variables, the effect disappears. The strong negative effect of Ukraine support on identifying as a Republican contradicts most of the existing work that foreign policy is a low salience issue.


Selected Work in Progress:

"Economics of Non-Democracies: Market Power, Protests, and Regime Survival" 

"Leading to the Revolution: Signaling Dissent through Illicit Activities" (with Mariam Malashkhia)

"Insurance Provision with Electoral Incentives and Market Power" (with Santiago Seoane)