My research focuses on the ways in which international organizations and other aspects of globalization both condition and also create challenges for domestic democratic institutions.
I am currently developing a book project that builds on my dissertation research to propose and test an international-level theory of democratic backsliding. I argue the increased delegation of policy authority from the domestic to the international level that has characterized post-Cold War international environment has made backsliding more likely by simultaneously increasing executive power and eroding domestic representative institutions. Related research extends this work to explore how other aspects of economic globalization, such as trade shocks from low-wage economies, fuel elite polarization and populism in advanced industrialized democracies, while other projects examine how the growing number of backsliding states protect and advance their interests on the international stage.
Related research has been published or is forthcoming in World Politics, Review of International Organizations, Comparative Political Studies, Governance, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, and the Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism. I also have policy experience with the United States Agency for International Development, where I worked as a Virtual Student Federal Service E-Intern for the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Center.
Prior to coming to Arizona State, I completed my Ph.D. in Political Science at Ohio State University and I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance (NCGG) at Princeton University. I earned my B.A. in International Studies from Rhodes College and am originally from Memphis, Tennessee.