Research

My research sits at the intersection of civil-military relations, security studies, and democratic backsliding and authoritarian politics, with a regional focus on Latin America. I combine international relations and comparative politics to address two core questions: When and why do militaries intervene in politics? And once they do, what are the consequences not only for political institutions, but for the economy, society, and foreign policy?

These are classic questions in political science, but I bring them into the present, a present defined by democratic erosion, the rise of Chinese and Russian authoritarian models of civil-military governance, and transnational threats like organized crime and illicit economies that challenge the state's monopoly on violence. The theoretical thread unifying my research is that external pressures, international patronage ties, and security threats reshape the bargaining structure between civilian and military elites, with downstream effects on regime trajectories, patterns of civilian control, and, in some cases, democratic backsliding.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Uncertain times: The causal effects of coups on national income (with Kevin Grier & Robin Grier), American Journal of Political Science, 2024

Working Papers

Who Paints the Helmets Blue? Women and Contributions to PKOs (with Nila Zarepour-Arizi & Luisa Garcia-Carrion).

Beyond Capacity Building: U.S. Military Assistance and Civil-Military Relations in Partner Countries (under review).

Stability Abroad, Control at Home: First-Time Peacekeeping and Its Effects on Civil-Military Dynamics. 

The Venezuelan Blueprint: How to manage civil-military relations under Democratic Backsliding.

Rallying the Ranks: How Territorial Threats Shape Civil-Military Relations (with Toby Rider).

Squeeze Play: Military Coups and Their Unequal Economic Fallout (with Kevin Grier and Robin Grier).