Research
My research interests lie at the crossroads of international relations and comparative politics, where the interaction between international and domestic forces affects development outcomes. I employ a variety of methods to explore these themes, including case study and historical process tracing, statistics, and modeling.
Book Project
Exposure to Trade and State Development
Political institutions have been found to play a key role in shaping trajectories of economic growth and development. Under what conditions do institutions that promote such growth and development emerge? When a global economic crisis struck the island of Hispaniola in 1929, both Haiti and the Dominican Republic were agrarian societies ruled by a dominant class of agro-export merchants. Haitian rulers adjusted to the crisis by extracting a greater proportion of the peasant agricultural surplus, a policy that reinforced existing patterns of state predation and economic decay. Despite many similarities with Haiti, including tropical geography, patrimonial regime type, and agro-export dependency, Dominican rulers pursued developmentalist policies of import substitution industrialization when adjusting to the same crisis. Why did the ruler of one agrarian society adjust to the economic crisis of the 1930s through higher rates of extraction while the ruler of another invested in state-led industrialization--investments that transformed the economic purpose of state institutions and produced the fastest growing economy in Latin America over the second half of the 20th century?
Among agrarian societies, I find that the costs of a protracted terms of trade crisis and the import scarcities that ensue are borne disproportionately by the middle classes. I also find that the ability of markets in non-industrialized countries to replace scarce foreign imports with domestically manufactured substitutes is constrained by investment coordination problems. Thus, where the income distribution supports a proportionally larger middle class, the political coalitions that emerge out of shared economic hardship exert adaptive pressures on state institutions to resolve the coordination problems associated with industrialization. Conversely, in countries where the income distribution favors a proportionally smaller middle class, these distributional coalitions falter and attempts at import substitution succumb to market coordination failure. Highlighting the importance of global trade integration beginning in the late 1800s for reshaping income distribution across Latin America, these findings challenge recent explanations of post-colonial development that emphasize geographic or colonial path dependency.
Political institutions have been found to play a key role in shaping trajectories of economic growth and development. Under what conditions do institutions that promote such growth and development emerge? When a global economic crisis struck the island of Hispaniola in 1929, both Haiti and the Dominican Republic were agrarian societies ruled by a dominant class of agro-export merchants. Haitian rulers adjusted to the crisis by extracting a greater proportion of the peasant agricultural surplus, a policy that reinforced existing patterns of state predation and economic decay. Despite many similarities with Haiti, including tropical geography, patrimonial regime type, and agro-export dependency, Dominican rulers pursued developmentalist policies of import substitution industrialization when adjusting to the same crisis. Why did the ruler of one agrarian society adjust to the economic crisis of the 1930s through higher rates of extraction while the ruler of another invested in state-led industrialization--investments that transformed the economic purpose of state institutions and produced the fastest growing economy in Latin America over the second half of the 20th century?
Among agrarian societies, I find that the costs of a protracted terms of trade crisis and the import scarcities that ensue are borne disproportionately by the middle classes. I also find that the ability of markets in non-industrialized countries to replace scarce foreign imports with domestically manufactured substitutes is constrained by investment coordination problems. Thus, where the income distribution supports a proportionally larger middle class, the political coalitions that emerge out of shared economic hardship exert adaptive pressures on state institutions to resolve the coordination problems associated with industrialization. Conversely, in countries where the income distribution favors a proportionally smaller middle class, these distributional coalitions falter and attempts at import substitution succumb to market coordination failure. Highlighting the importance of global trade integration beginning in the late 1800s for reshaping income distribution across Latin America, these findings challenge recent explanations of post-colonial development that emphasize geographic or colonial path dependency.
Working Paper
Mineralized Democracy: Natural resources, distributional politics, and the rise of Latin America's radical left
Recent studies have argued that sovereign mineral wealth stabilizes democracies by alleviating redistributional conflict between the rich and poor. These models assume that non-tax mineral wealth translates into greater utility for the median voter through increased government spending. My theory builds upon these models by differentiating between spending on private versus public goods, identifying conditions where international trade in minerals undermines democratic stability by promoting the rise of radical, anti-system parties. Under most conditions radical-left parties falter because their policies threaten costly redistributional conflict. However in democracies where non-tax mineral wealth is high, but public goods provision is low, radical parties are able to credibly commit to providing public goods to the median voter without resorting to tax redistribution. I evaluate this theory using evidence from 17 Latin American countries, 1996-2006. It accounts for why presidential elections in mineral-rich countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela produced viable radical-left candidates while those of Chile (also a mineral rentier state) and the rest of Latin America did not. These findings contribute to our understanding of distributional politics and institutional development in mineral-rich democracies, with implications for institutional development in other regions.
Recent studies have argued that sovereign mineral wealth stabilizes democracies by alleviating redistributional conflict between the rich and poor. These models assume that non-tax mineral wealth translates into greater utility for the median voter through increased government spending. My theory builds upon these models by differentiating between spending on private versus public goods, identifying conditions where international trade in minerals undermines democratic stability by promoting the rise of radical, anti-system parties. Under most conditions radical-left parties falter because their policies threaten costly redistributional conflict. However in democracies where non-tax mineral wealth is high, but public goods provision is low, radical parties are able to credibly commit to providing public goods to the median voter without resorting to tax redistribution. I evaluate this theory using evidence from 17 Latin American countries, 1996-2006. It accounts for why presidential elections in mineral-rich countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela produced viable radical-left candidates while those of Chile (also a mineral rentier state) and the rest of Latin America did not. These findings contribute to our understanding of distributional politics and institutional development in mineral-rich democracies, with implications for institutional development in other regions.