Published work
Fiscal Conditions for Multiparty Elections in Dictatorships. Journal of Peace Research (Conditional Acceptance). When does a dictator introduce multiparty elections to secure the regime? I argue that dictators introduce elections when they have spent on repressive capacity sufficiently to survive elections but lack the additional budget capacity to buy-off the opposition. The results suggest the conditions for elections in contemporary dictatorships are analogous to those for the emergence of early and late modern parliaments and council assemblies.
Structured Stability Spending in Late Modern Empires: Japan, Germany, Ottoman State, and Brazil. Journal of Historical Political Economy 2(2):363-389 Special Issue on the Political Economy of Empires. Late modern empires had to determine their budget allocations while considering many competing priorities for security and development during a time period with rapidly changing political and economic circumstances. A formal model explains that regimes initially prioritized repressive capacity but shifted the focus of their budgets towards public goods as their financial resources increased. This empirical implication is supported by evidence from archival budget data of four regimes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/115.00000033
Field Research When There's Limited Access to the Field: Lessons from Japan (with K. Amano, M. S. Dominguez, T. Fraser, E. Gagnon, T. Incerti, J. Jang, C. T. McClean, S. Miyano, C. Moreshead, H. Saijo, D. Stanescu, A. Teraoka, H. Yamagishi, C. N. Willis, Y. Woo, and C. Crabtree). PS: Political Science and Politics, 1-7. The past couple years have substantially constrained the ability for researchers to travel and conduct in-person interviews. We detail approaches that researchers can take to continue their work despite the complications of these restrictions. We provide ideas and suggest resources based on Japan, but the lessons are informative to other countries and circumstances. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096522000932
Political Centralization, Career Incentives, and Local Economic Growth in Edo Japan (with Weiwen Yin). Explorations in Economic History, 85:1-15 July 2022 (Article 101446). Fiscal decentralization can increase local economic growth but depends on the political centralization of the regime. Local leaders that were excluded from central government politics in Edo Japan had greater incentive to invest in their own domains rather than using their domains' resources for their personal political advancements. Over 250 years of the Tokugawa's rule created higher growth in domains led by politically excluded leaders compared to the regime's subordinates. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2022.101446
Women & Digital Government in Rural India: Extending TAM with User Assisted Service (with Suparna Soni). Information Polity 27(1):59-78. Gendered institutions create unequal outcomes in skills that enable citizens to utilize information technologies. Rural user-assisted kiosks help women overcome these inequalities in accessing egovernment services. Evidence from survey data collected by Soni indicate that rural women benefit from local kiosks. https://doi.org/10.3233/IP-200302
Institutional Development and the Dowry Death Curve Across States in India (with Suparna Soni). Journal of International Development 33:1026-1042. Scholars find that the practice of dowry is increasing in India despite increasing incomes and improvements to gender inequality. We argue that in low economic development situations males' families are able to realize the gains in income which reinforces gender inequality. But, in higher developed settings, males families are less able to demand dowries because gendered informal institutions are weaker. Data and replication files. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3549
Why Do Democracies Accept More or Less Foreign Direct Investment? A Meta-Regression Analysis (with Quan Li and Erica Owen). International Studies Quarterly. 62(3), pp.494-504. In this manuscript, we test the mechanisms by which democracy is associated with foreign direct investment. We use the findings from 40 existing studies as a our dataset. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqy014
Under review
Show Me the Money: Explaining State-building in Late 16th Century Japan (with Minzhao Wang and Weiwen Yin). Rulers developed fiscal capacity to solve external and internal security dilemmas but this does not explain how rulers prioritized state-building at the local level. We apply arguments for external and internal conflict, as well as a third argument for resource maximization, to explain how central governments build local fiscal capacity. We test the hypotheses with data we collected on the timing of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's cadastral surveys during the late Sengoku Period in Japan.
Current research
Democracy and the Development of Modern State Capacity: Evidence from the First and Second Waves of Democratization (with Masaaki Higashijima). Over time, regimes created democratic institutions of contestation and inclusivity to target opposition groups as a means of political survival. The preferences of the socioeconomic groups that the regime incorporated predict the development of specific forms of state capacity. A new global data set on regime finance from 1800-1975 provides evidence consistent with the implications of the argument.
A Model of Political and Economic Protest in Authoritarian Regimes (with Kana Inata and Masaaki Higashijima). Protests have varying degrees of economic and political demands. This paper constructs a formal model to explain who joins which types of protests, as well as which types of protests dictators are more likely to accommodate versus repress. The model results also suggest why some types of protests are more likely to turn violent than others.
In Progress
Late Modern Central Government Finance: A New Global Dataset (with Masaaki Higashijima).
How Digital Governance Improves Trust and Perceptions of Corruption: eMitra in Rajasthan, India (with Suparna Soni).
Fiscal Conditions for Multiparty Elections in Dictatorships. Journal of Peace Research (Conditional Acceptance). When does a dictator introduce multiparty elections to secure the regime? I argue that dictators introduce elections when they have spent on repressive capacity sufficiently to survive elections but lack the additional budget capacity to buy-off the opposition. The results suggest the conditions for elections in contemporary dictatorships are analogous to those for the emergence of early and late modern parliaments and council assemblies.
Structured Stability Spending in Late Modern Empires: Japan, Germany, Ottoman State, and Brazil. Journal of Historical Political Economy 2(2):363-389 Special Issue on the Political Economy of Empires. Late modern empires had to determine their budget allocations while considering many competing priorities for security and development during a time period with rapidly changing political and economic circumstances. A formal model explains that regimes initially prioritized repressive capacity but shifted the focus of their budgets towards public goods as their financial resources increased. This empirical implication is supported by evidence from archival budget data of four regimes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/115.00000033
Field Research When There's Limited Access to the Field: Lessons from Japan (with K. Amano, M. S. Dominguez, T. Fraser, E. Gagnon, T. Incerti, J. Jang, C. T. McClean, S. Miyano, C. Moreshead, H. Saijo, D. Stanescu, A. Teraoka, H. Yamagishi, C. N. Willis, Y. Woo, and C. Crabtree). PS: Political Science and Politics, 1-7. The past couple years have substantially constrained the ability for researchers to travel and conduct in-person interviews. We detail approaches that researchers can take to continue their work despite the complications of these restrictions. We provide ideas and suggest resources based on Japan, but the lessons are informative to other countries and circumstances. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096522000932
Political Centralization, Career Incentives, and Local Economic Growth in Edo Japan (with Weiwen Yin). Explorations in Economic History, 85:1-15 July 2022 (Article 101446). Fiscal decentralization can increase local economic growth but depends on the political centralization of the regime. Local leaders that were excluded from central government politics in Edo Japan had greater incentive to invest in their own domains rather than using their domains' resources for their personal political advancements. Over 250 years of the Tokugawa's rule created higher growth in domains led by politically excluded leaders compared to the regime's subordinates. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2022.101446
Women & Digital Government in Rural India: Extending TAM with User Assisted Service (with Suparna Soni). Information Polity 27(1):59-78. Gendered institutions create unequal outcomes in skills that enable citizens to utilize information technologies. Rural user-assisted kiosks help women overcome these inequalities in accessing egovernment services. Evidence from survey data collected by Soni indicate that rural women benefit from local kiosks. https://doi.org/10.3233/IP-200302
Institutional Development and the Dowry Death Curve Across States in India (with Suparna Soni). Journal of International Development 33:1026-1042. Scholars find that the practice of dowry is increasing in India despite increasing incomes and improvements to gender inequality. We argue that in low economic development situations males' families are able to realize the gains in income which reinforces gender inequality. But, in higher developed settings, males families are less able to demand dowries because gendered informal institutions are weaker. Data and replication files. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3549
Why Do Democracies Accept More or Less Foreign Direct Investment? A Meta-Regression Analysis (with Quan Li and Erica Owen). International Studies Quarterly. 62(3), pp.494-504. In this manuscript, we test the mechanisms by which democracy is associated with foreign direct investment. We use the findings from 40 existing studies as a our dataset. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqy014
Under review
Show Me the Money: Explaining State-building in Late 16th Century Japan (with Minzhao Wang and Weiwen Yin). Rulers developed fiscal capacity to solve external and internal security dilemmas but this does not explain how rulers prioritized state-building at the local level. We apply arguments for external and internal conflict, as well as a third argument for resource maximization, to explain how central governments build local fiscal capacity. We test the hypotheses with data we collected on the timing of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's cadastral surveys during the late Sengoku Period in Japan.
Current research
Democracy and the Development of Modern State Capacity: Evidence from the First and Second Waves of Democratization (with Masaaki Higashijima). Over time, regimes created democratic institutions of contestation and inclusivity to target opposition groups as a means of political survival. The preferences of the socioeconomic groups that the regime incorporated predict the development of specific forms of state capacity. A new global data set on regime finance from 1800-1975 provides evidence consistent with the implications of the argument.
A Model of Political and Economic Protest in Authoritarian Regimes (with Kana Inata and Masaaki Higashijima). Protests have varying degrees of economic and political demands. This paper constructs a formal model to explain who joins which types of protests, as well as which types of protests dictators are more likely to accommodate versus repress. The model results also suggest why some types of protests are more likely to turn violent than others.
In Progress
Late Modern Central Government Finance: A New Global Dataset (with Masaaki Higashijima).
How Digital Governance Improves Trust and Perceptions of Corruption: eMitra in Rajasthan, India (with Suparna Soni).
