Working Papers:

"The Protest Dilemma: The Effect of Threat of War in Sustaining Non-Democratic Regimes" (with Mariam Malashkhia) (Job Market Paper) 

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) 

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. Moreover, our model offers a new perspective on the strategic role of fraud —- shaping post-election dynamics by affecting the challenger’s incentive to boycott and subsequent protest. 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" 

International support is often expected to help oppositions challenge non-democratic incumbents. I develop a formal model showing that such support can backfire when it subsidizes an action that citizens interpret as a costly signal of opposition strength. By lowering the private cost of this action, support makes it more common but less informative. I illustrate this mechanism in the context of post-election boycotts. A pro-change donor prefers boycotts to remain rare but informative: costly enough that only relatively strong challengers boycott, but not so costly that boycott never occurs. By contrast, a pro-regime donor may fully support the opposition, making boycotts common but uninformative. Consequently, observed support for the opposition does not necessarily reflect pro-change intentions, rather it may reflect precisely the opposite. Finally, I show that although pro-change international support can help facilitate a peaceful transition, it can also, under some conditions, lead to higher levels of fraud.


"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) 

War affects lives long after it ends. While much research focuses on violence, the effects of displacement remain underexplored despite more than 120 million people living in forced displacement worldwide. Using a natural experiment setting created by the unexpected postwar shift in the Administrative Boundary Line after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, we examine displacement as a distinct form of wartime victimization and argue that it has lasting effects on political attitudes. Similar to findings from the violence literature, displacement generates perpetrator-directed hostility without producing generalized hawkishness. This suggests that political effects commonly associated with violence exposure may not be unique to violence, but instead reflect a broader process through which wartime victimization shapes postwar political attitudes. At the same time, when displacement is accompanied by violence, it is associated with stronger solidarity toward analogous victims and higher reported voting. Thus, displacement and violence can reinforce each other in specific domains.



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)