“State-Building, Collective Efficacy, and the Co-Production of Public Goods in Rural Africa” (with Martha Wilfahrt). Forthcoming, Comparative Political Studies.
“Legacies of Violence in the UPC Conflict: Grievance and Opposition in Cameroon” (with Joseph Lasky). Forthcoming, African Affairs.
“Partisanship and Political Socialization in Electoral Autocracies.” 2025. American Political Science Review, 119(1): p. 208-223.
2026 Democracy & Autocracy Section Best Article Award, Honorable Mention
“Autocratic Legalism, Partisanship, and Popular Legitimation in Authoritarian Cameroon” (with Yonatan Morse). 2023. Public Opinion Quarterly, 87(4): p. 935-955.
“Judge, Landlord, Broker, Watchman: Assessing Variation in Chiefly Duties in the Ghana-Togo Borderlands” (with Martha Wilfahrt). 2023. Journal of Modern African Studies, 61(3): p. 439-462.
“Expressive Voting in Autocracies: A Theory of Non-Economic Participation with Evidence from Cameroon.” 2020.
Perspectives on Politics, 18 (2), 439-453.
2020 Heinz I. Eulau Award for best article published in Perspectives on Politics
“The Mechanisms of Direct and Indirect Rule: Colonialism and Economic Development in Africa” (with Martha Wilfahrt). 2020. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 15 (4), 539-577.
“The Political Geography of Electoral Autocracies: The Influence of Party Strongholds on Political Beliefs in Africa.” 2019.
Electoral Studies, Volume 60.
“Popular Support for Democracy in Autocratic Regimes: A Micro-Level Analysis of Preferences” (with Martha Wilfahrt). 2018.
Comparative Politics, 50 (2), 231-250.
“‘The People’s Choice’: Popular (Il)Legitimacy in Autocratic Cameroon.” 2017. Journal of Modern African Studies, 55 (4), 647-679.
“Voting for Peace, Mobilizing for War: Post-Conflict Voter Turnout and Civil War Recurrence.” 2017. Democratization, 24 (3), p. 425-443.
Nonpartisanship and Support for Democracy in Autocratic Regimes
(With Edward Morris)
In the hyper-polarized context of an electoral autocracy, where opposition and ruling party partisans are deeply divided on basic political issues, why do some people fail to take a side? In other words, if ruling party partisans are strongly pro-regime while opposition partisans are strongly pro-democracy, it is unclear where nonpartisans—who oftentimes comprise a large majority of citizens in such regimes—stand. What does nonpartisanship mean in an autocratic regime? This paper tests several potential models of nonpartisanship. First, due to the repressive nature of autocracies, nonpartisans may be overwhelmingly apolitical. Second, just like in democracies, nonpartisans may not openly identify with a party, but still lean ideologically towards either the opposition or the regime. Third, while nonpartisans in democratic contexts are likely to lean towards any party, nonpartisans in autocratic contexts may lean overwhelmingly towards the opposition. Finally, nonpartisans may be uniquely ‘anti-establishmentarian,’ rejecting democratic values altogether. These four hypotheses are tested using World Values Survey data from electoral autocracies around the world. The results indicate that while a small proportion of nonpartisans are apolitical, the large majority are opposition-leaners. They are also slightly more likely than partisans to embrace anti-democratic views. These findings suggest that while nonpartisans are no silent bulwark for the regime, unlike opposition partisans, they may only be mobilized against the regime under narrow circumstances.