Work in progress

Selected working papers (available on request)

Monuments of might: Symbolic political structures across the world.
With Haakon Gjerløw, Felix Haas, and Carl Henrik Knutsen
Abstract Physical symbols that represent institutions of power, nations, or individual leaders have been a feature of politics since ancient times. When and why do governments erect such politically symbolic buildings and monuments, and do they have tangible consequences on, e.g., citizens’ beliefs or behavior? Systematic data-based answers to these questions have been obstructed by the lack of comparable measures that extend across countries and over time. Hence, we collect and make publicly available detailed data on three ubiquitous features of symbolic politics pertaining to, respectively, institutionalized power, nations, and leaders: (1) government and legislative buildings, (2) mega-flagpoles, and (3) leader statues. We elaborate on the concept of symbolic political structures and discuss how they may be conceived as credible commitment devices, before we detail and evaluate our new data. To illustrate how the data may be used, we show that investment in symbolic structures meaningfully varies with leader- and regime features. For instance, personalist dictators are particularly likely to build more and higher statues and change residencies than democratic leaders. Our new data helps to advance comparative research on symbolic politics and provide new measures for hard-to-observe regime features, such as regime legitimation.
Executive Constraints and Focal Points: Facilitators of Democratic Breakdowns Led by Incumbents versus Non-incumbents, 1789-2020.
With Vilde Lunnan Djuve, Carl Henrik Knutsen, and Svend-Erik Skaaning
Abstract Democratic breakdowns are typically initiated either by government incumbents or by domestic actors outside an elected government, such as the military. The actors behind these ideal-type modes often have different motives and capacities to undermine democracy and may therefore be influenced by different factors. We focus on two facilitators: institutional constraints on the executive and external shocks, theorizing that the former is more relevant to the risk of incumbent-led breakdowns, while the latter is more likely to prompt non-incumbent takeovers. Our analysis, spanning most democratic regime spells since 1789, shows that economic crises, one form of shock, significantly correlates only with non-incumbent takeovers, while regional democratic breakdown shows no significant association with either mode. Institutional constraints on the executive are linked to both modes. These findings only partially align with our theoretical argument, and we discuss alternative explanations, such as rival elites preemptively acting against perceived threats from opposing groups.
Tools for adaptation. How elections inform and legitimize elite turnover in autocracies.
Single-authored
Previous version (PDF)
Abstract Dictators rely on capable and loyal elite coalitions to stay in power, but shifting political landscapes often require adjustments to this coalition. However, detecting gradual political changes and implementing elite turnover without provoking backlash is challenging. I argue that dictators can use elections to mitigate both problems. First, elections provide information on the strengths and loyalties of elites and regime outsiders, helping dictators assess whether coalition adjustments are needed. Second, elections institutionalize and legitimize elite turnover, reducing the risk that turnover is perceived as a power-grab, thus causing backlash. Empirical analyses demonstrate that election-years, on average, increase cabinet turnover by around 12 percentage points and have a similar effect on military purges. Additional analyses show that the effect of elections is stronger when their informational value is higher, and that while elite turnover increases the risk of successful coups, this risk is mitigated when elite turnover happens during election years.
Democratizers Join, Autocratizers Stay? Regime Change and IO Membership 1816-2023.
With Karin Sundström, Carl Vikberg, and Jonas Tallberg
Abstract While prior research has shown that democratization tends to increase states’ cooperation and expand their memberships in international organizations (IOs), the reverse process, autocratization, remains underexplored. This is a critical gap given the current wave of autocratization and its potential to reshape global governance. Using new data on regime type, IO memberships, and IO issue areas from 1816 to 2023, we distinguish between the effects of democratization and autocratization across different types of IOs. We find that democratization robustly increases IO memberships, particularly in democratically committed IOs (organizations referencing democracy, human rights, or rule of law). We find no robust general effect of autocratization but find that this masks heterogeneity: incumbent-led autocratization (gradual executive aggrandizement) has no effect, while non-incumbent-led autocratization (coups and rebellions) has a robust and substantive negative effect on IOs. Our results suggest that only highly visible regime changes trigger membership reductions, while gradual backsliding allows regimes to maintain engagement and potentially transform institutions from within, with important implications for understanding how contemporary autocratization reshapes global governance.
Democratization, Autocratization, and the Effectiveness of International Shaming.
With Faradj Koliev
Abstract How does regime type affect states’ propensity to comply with international agreements? We distinguish between proactive compliance, where states conform to international standards without external prompting, and reactive compliance, where states improve only after being publicly criticized. Using ILO supervisory data from 1970–2020, we examine how democratization and autocratization affect reactive compliance—states’ responsiveness to international shaming for labor rights violations. We operationalize regime change as significant movements on V-Dem’s Polyarchy Index and employ linear probability models with country, year, and convention fixed effects. Democratization increases the likelihood of receiving positive ILO compliance notes by 4–8 percentage points, regardless of starting regime type. Autocratization shows no systematic effect. We argue that democratization enhances reactive compliance by empowering domestic compliance constituencies, creating credible commitment incentives, and disrupting institutional equilibria that sustained prior non-compliance. These findings reveal that the effectiveness of international shaming depends on the direction of domestic political change, not merely static regime characteristics.
The Price of Incompetence: Security Failures and Ministerial Accountability in Autocracies.
With Austin S. Matthews
Abstract Do dictators hold their cabinet ministers accountable for policy failures, and do such failures push them to appoint more competent replacements? Existing research emphasizes loyalty as the dominant logic of authoritarian elite management, yet many cabinet portfolios carry responsibilities critical to regime survival. We argue that interior ministers, who oversee internal security and counter-terrorism, offer a revealing test of whether competence matters when the stakes are highest. Using an original dataset of more than 1,000 interior ministers across autocracies from 1970 to 2014, combined with data on terrorist attacks, we show that deadly terrorism significantly increases the likelihood of ministerial dismissal. However, such crises do not lead dictators to appoint successors with greater security expertise, underscoring the limits of competence-based accountability. These findings highlight the high-stakes trade-off between loyalty and performance in authoritarian governance and contribute to research on elite politics, accountability, and the political consequences of terrorism.