Research

When, how, and to what ends do opposition parties look beyond their borders for support? In an increasingly authoritarian global environment, oppositions face acute barriers to gaining power and promoting fair elections. International actors, such as foreign governments, diaspora communities, and transnational activists, all present opposition parties with potential resources, from financial and rhetorical backing to political and economic leverage. But engaging foreign actors also comes with risks: doing so can eat up limited resources and can leave oppositions open to being tagged and punished as “tools of foreign interference.” Amidst these considerations, pro- democracy parties have diverged in the extent to which they deliberately internationalize their struggles, and these choices have implications not only for their prospects at home, but also for relations between the governments they engage and challenge.

The book project considers various forms of international engagement by opposition politicians and develops and tests a theory of when parties pursue them and to what ends. I focus, in particular, on a set of activities aimed at encouraging international pressure on incumbent regimes, which I refer to collectively as “opposition diplomacy.” These include networking through transnational political party organizations and enlisting diaspora supporters to lobby foreign governments on their behalf. Relying on original cross-national data on the international activities of opposition parties, as well as case studies based on in-depth, interview-based fieldwork in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States, I demonstrate that opposition parties and politicians engage in opposition diplomacy when pathways to power are constrained at home, and that these activities can influence decisions by Western policymakers, particularly when oppositions can successfully convince those policymakers that they are both viable electoral contenders and credibly committed to democratic norms.

While prior accounts of transnational advocacy situate NGOs or diaspora communities as protagonists, I demonstrate how engagement by opposition politicians is often central to the activation of these other actors and constituencies toward pro-democratic ends. In doing so, I aim to reshape how we think about strategic interactions not only between opposition parties and incumbent regimes, but also between diasporas and homeland politics, donor and recipient governments, and various other actors operating beyond state borders.

Nonpartisan citizen election observation plays an important role in promoting the credibility of electoral processes around the world. This article assesses whether nonpartisan observation can shape attitudes among the U.S. public, randomizing information about nonpartisan domestic observers in a series of survey experiments fielded to nearly 10,000 respondents. These included both hypothetical vignettes and information about a real-world nonpartisan domestic observation mission undertaken by The Carter Center during the 2022 midterm elections in Fulton County, Georgia. The results show that information about positive assessments by nonpartisan observers of the hypothetical and Fulton County elections increased respondents' confidence in electoral results and processes, and also made respondents more likely to identify the officially announced winner over the candidate they favored as the candidate who won. Alternative ways of framing observers were largely inconsequential. 

Updated version conditionally accepted at the American Journal of Political Science

Opposition coalitions under electoral authoritarianism have been associated with greater likelihood of opposition victory and democratization. I argue, however, that coalitions also entail significant downside risks with implications for longer-term prospects for democracy. Where coalitions produce strong electoral outcomes but fail to force turnovers, regimes are left with both the incentive and capacity to repress and reconsolidate power. I show cross-nationally that opposition coalitions are associated with stronger opposition performance overall, but that when oppositions fail to take power, exceptionally strong performance is associated with greater autocratization in the subsequent years, including increased repression and poorer electoral quality in future contests. Probing the case of Cambodia, I demonstrate how the very features that make opposition coalitions a useful tool in strengthening performance also invite new threats from regimes. I argue that this makes coalition formation a particularly risky proposition.

Supplementary appendix available here.

Are social media users in developing and conflict-affected countries more intolerant than non-users? As platforms like Facebook become increasingly viewed as drivers of polarization and violence, this question is critical to understanding social media’s potential role in stoking and perpetuating intergroup conflict. We explore this question using unique survey data that istinguishes between Facebook users and non-users in a conflict-affected, yet understudied context. Myanmar has been cited as a cautionary example of social media’s toxic environment and deleterious effects. But arguments that highlight Facebook’s connections to malicious actors or instances of localized violence often implicitly assume a disproportionately toxic online community with the capacity to negatively influence intergroup attitudes. Challenging this assumption, we find that Facebook users are significantly more tolerant of other religions and ethnicities on average than non-users, even controlling for relevant demographic covariates. We suggest that these findings are largely the product of selection and that Facebook’s power to dramatically reshape public attitudes may be relatively limited. We argue that the findings should influence how we evaluate claims about Facebook’s contribution to high levels of ethnic and religious intolerance in Myanmar and other diverse societies.

After many decades and billions of dollars spent, the effects of foreign democracy promotion interventions remain poorly understood, particularly in authoritarian contexts. Do these external interventions contribute to the building blocks of democratization and democratic consolidation under autocracy? Do these potential contributions come at the cost of bolstering autocrats’ credibility? This article presents a randomized study of a democracy promotion program undertaken by a prominent international non-governmental organization (INGO) in rural Cambodia, in which elected parliamentarians from multiple political parties interacted with constituents. The intervention had relatively large effects on individuals’ knowledge about politics and self-reported political engagement but, crucially, did not give citizens increased confidence in Cambodia’s “democracy,” suggesting a role for democracy promotion without whitewashing the authoritarian nature of Cambodian politics. Overall, the results suggest that democracy promotion under authoritarianism can foster a more engaged and informed citizenry without lending undue credibility to an authoritarian system.

Western democratic powers are no longer the dominant external shapers of political transitions around the world. A new global marketplace of political change now exists, in which varied arrays of states, including numerous nondemocracies and non-Western democracies, are influencing transitional trajectories. Western policymakers and aid practitioners have been slow to come to grips with the realities and implications of this new situation.

Why do Western governments sanction some states for their violations of human rights and democratic norms but not others? I argue that an overlooked factor in the imposition of these “democratic sanctions” is the character and actions of opposition parties from potential target states. Sanctions have been found to bolster opposition resolve and spur anti-regime activity, but opposition actors themselves can also be instrumental in shaping where they are imposed in the first place. I argue that a robust, independent opposition can increase the likelihood of democratic sanctions by generating focal points for international advocacy, shaping perceptions of domestic political dynamics among Western policymakers, and limiting target regimes’ maneuverability by increasing the perceived costs associated with democratization. The domestic presence of an autonomous opposition drives this relationship, but parties can also amplify these dynamics by engaging in active transnational efforts to encourage pressure—what I term opposition diplomacy. Using cross-national data, I demonstrate that, among autocracies, regimes with autonomous opposition parties are more likely to be subjected to democratic sanctions. I use process tracing to explore the nature of this relationship in the context of the EU’s withdrawal of trade privileges from Myanmar in 1997. The findings highlight the important transnational role of domestic opposition parties, while shedding greater light on the dynamics of sanctions decision-making.

Manuscript available upon request

Political party internationals (PPIs) – transnational membership-based organizations made up of ideologically-aligned political parties – constitute a critically understudied set of international institutions. Their ranks have swelled in recent decades, especially among parties from the Global South, and yet we know little about what drives parties to join them or what benefits they might provide. I argue that PPIs can serve as critical venues for networking and advocacy by opposition parties, who can use them to cultivate international allies and encourage foreign pressure on the incumbents they challenge. In this paper, I present original cross-national data on PPI membership over time, demonstrating the dramatic growth of PPIs since the late-1980s and their increasing regional diversity. I also show that opposition membership in a PPI is associated with a higher likelihood of regimes’ democratic deficits being raised by allies in venues such as the European Parliament. I supplement this analysis with insights from qualitative interviews with politicians and PPI staff, demonstrating the extent to which these organizations can serve as useful venues for opposition networking and solidarity. In contrast to the limited previous work on these organizations, I demonstrate that PPIs have an important role in international politics with particular implications for domestic developments in autocracies

Manuscript available here

Opposition actors under authoritarianism have strong incentives to declare themselves champions of democracy, given the oppression they suffer and their structural disadvantages. However, the ultimate test of their democratic commitment comes when they gain power. Will they betray democracy, or continue to behave as good democrats, even when they have fewer incentives to do so? This unresolvable question of democratic credibility poses significant challenges for potential allies, including civil society and international democracy promoters. Drawing on elite interviews and illustrative cases, I elucidate this dilemma of democratic credibility for opposition actors under autocracy. As I argue, the credibility dilemma makes potential partners and supporters wary of collaborating with them, which undermines their capacity to promote democratic change.

Manuscript available upon request

Scholarship on democratization and democratic backsliding often differentiates regimes by their degree of contestation—that is, how vulnerable incumbents are to removal via elections. But while previous work has tended to assume that flawed democracy, competitive authoritarianism, and hegemonic authoritarianism are observable and measurable regime types, I argue that these classifications are better understood as latent characteristics, reliably revealed only in the context of a strong challenge from the opposition. This reality introduces diagnostic uncertainty, which presents both practical and research-related challenges. For oppositions and their supporters, it constitutes a strategic dilemma, since the strategies necessary under one regime type context may be inappropriate or counterproductive under another. For researchers, it complicates operationalization, calling into question the utility of polychotomous regime type measures for understanding cross-national patterns and testing theories across a range of areas. Drawing on empirical cases, I illustrate how ex ante regime classification can often fail to accurately ascertain the relative vulnerability of autocratic and autocratizing incumbents, and how opposition challenges can reveal information about true types while also introducing significant risks for the challengers. I also explore the implications of understanding regime type as a latent variable for the ways that scholars develop and generalize recommendations for how to challenge anti-democratic incumbents.

Manuscript available upon request

How do electoral authoritarian regimes manage the threat posed by the political opposition? We define and explore an important and understudied approach: encouraging defections from the opposition to the ruling party. While traditionally understood as a narrow form of strategic cooptation, we argue that regime efforts to encourage defections are, in fact, often broadly cast, highly coercive, and intended to impose dominance, rather than simply ``buy off'' opponents. In this way, defections blur the line between repression and cooptation, challenging the prevailing conception of these tactics as supplementary tools. We distinguish between factional defections of opposition leaders and mass defections of the rank-and-file and argue that they evince distinct dynamics. Drawing on original quantitative and qualitative data on opposition defections in Cambodia between 2017 and 2025, we demonstrate that mass defections were the product of deliberate, though not highly targeted regime campaigns, in which quantity of defectors was prioritized over particular characteristics or positions. We show that returns to defection for opposition members were limited, making them less materially costly for regimes while undermining their role as a method of cooptation, and that repression was highly salient and a critical component of their success, suggesting that, by ramping up repression, autocrats can influence the calculus of remaining loyal to the opposition. Our theory and evidence suggest that defections are not merely a weapon of weak regimes, but a method of reinforcing regime power broadly.

Manuscript available upon request

How does the reversal in U.S. policies that provided support for democracy around the world matter for international politics? We argue that although democracy was already facing challenges globally, this policy shock will reshape not only the trajectory of regimes domestically, but also the character of international political dynamics. This echoes the shift that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union abruptly punctuated an already unfolding transformation in global politics. We discuss changes in three core areas of U.S.-led international support for democracy: technical, diplomatic, and ideational, highlighting the ways in which the rapid changes in U.S. policies and priorities both exacerbate longer-term challenges and introduce distinct pressures both directly on the targets of U.S. influence and indirectly on the wider international architecture for democracy promotion. We then discuss the implications for international politics, including how changes in the character of domestic regimes that uphold it are likely to reinforce and accelerate processes of international institutional change.

Manuscript available upon request