research
Who gets connected is a political decision.
dissertation
Politics in the Digital Age.
Committee:
Tiffany D. Barnes (Chair),
Jesse C. Johnson,
Amy H. Liu, and
Jakana Thomas.
Digital infrastructure is not a neutral public good. It is a strategic variable that governments calibrate for regime survival. My dissertation follows that choice through three stages.
Whose Weapons? Modern Communication Technologies and the Strategic Logic of Provision
When do governments build politically risky digital infrastructure? High-capacity states condition expansion on political threat: they move fast when threats are low and hold back as mobilization rises.
Job market paper. Draft available on request.
Empowering the Ruler or the Ruled: How 3G Shapes Government Human Rights Practices
Once connectivity arrives, its effect on human rights depends on institutions. The relationship reverses sign between democracies and regimes where citizens cannot hold governments accountable.
Preparing for submission. Draft available on request.
Governing Innovation: How Regime Type Shapes State Responses to Emerging Technologies
Regime type shapes not whether states regulate platforms but the order they do it in. Authoritarian governments secure political control first; democracies govern political and economic risks together.
Draft available on request.
working papers
Beyond the dissertation, I study artificial intelligence and political authority: how states use prediction to govern, how citizens judge algorithmic decisions, and how AI systems answer political questions.
In progress
- Algorithmic Authoritarianism: Can Political Stability Be Automated? Complete draft
Examines how predictive governance may shift authoritarian control from reactive punishment toward anticipatory intervention, using China’s Government Work Reports. - Wired and Riled: Modern Communication Technology and Social Unrest Complete draft
Mobile broadband and protest in Latin America. - Past Performance or Future Promise? Determinants of U.S. Presidential Voting Complete draft
with James R. Masterson and Kay Hales. Presented at SPSA, 2024.
AI and governance
- Who Should Decide? Public Evaluations of Algorithmic Decision-Making in Government
Survey experiment on whether citizens distinguish real human review from rubber-stamp approval of an algorithm. - AI as Political Information Environments: How LLMs Frame the Same Political Questions
Cross-model audit. Proposal workshopped at the UPenn Computational Social Science Summer Institute. - Does Algorithmic Governance Influence Political Trust?
Survey in progress.