My research focuses on the international causes and consequences of democratic backsliding, international organizations, and the effects of international policy requirements on domestic democratic institutions.
My first book, Eroding Democracy from the Outside In: International Organizations and Democratic Backsliding (Oxford University Press, 2025), develops a novel, international-level theory of democratic backsliding. Research on democratic backsliding has proliferated, but to-date has largely focused on domestic-level factors. These domestic determinants are undoubtedly critical, but the global scale of the current democratic recession and extensive research showing a strong and positive relationship between international integration and democracy suggest that structural, international factors are an integral part of the story as well. I show that increased delegation of policy authority to international organizations in the post-Cold War era has made backsliding more likely by fundamentally altering, and in many ways undermining, domestic representative institutions that are critical for long-term democratic success. This project was supported by a Strategy and Policy Fellowship from the Smith Richardson Foundation (2024).
Work on these and related topics has been published in World Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the Review of International Organizations (x2), Party Politics, Governance, and in several edited volumes. Additional information about my research can be found on my personal website.
Prior to coming to Arizona State, I completed my Ph.D. in Political Science at the Ohio State University and I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance (NCGG) at Princeton University. I also previously worked at the United States Agency for International Development’s Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Center. I earned my B.A. in International Studies from Rhodes College and am originally from Memphis, Tennessee.