Journal Articles
No Easy Way Out: The Effect of Military Coups on State Repression (Journal of Politics, forthcoming)
Military coups are often advocated as solutions for ending state-sponsored atrocities. Yet, we know little about coups' precise consequences. This article estimates the effect of coups on state repression by exploiting the element of chance in whether an attempted coup succeeds or fails. Contrary to popular views of coups as remedies against repressive autocrats, I find no evidence that coups have a pacifying effect on state repression. Rather, coups appear to make matters worse, even when targeting leaders that commit large-scale human rights violations. This article contributes to studies of political violence, authoritarianism, and civil-military relations, by resolving a longstanding "good coup vs. bad coup" debate. It also advances literature on coups and their consequences through an innovative empirical design that leverages exogenous variation in coup outcomes, combined with an extreme bounds analysis, overcoming conventional challenges of causal inference using observational data.
Social Revolution and Authoritarian Durability (with Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Adam Casey, World Politics, forthcoming)
This article explores the causes of authoritarian durability. Why do some authoritarian regimes survive for decades, often despite severe crises, while others collapse quickly, even absent significant challenges? Based on an analysis of all authoritarian regimes since 1900, we argue that regimes that emerge out of violent social revolution are especially durable. Social revolutionary regimes such as those in Russia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam endured for more than a half a century in the face of strong external pressure, poor economic performance, and large-scale policy failures. We develop and test a theory that accounts for such durability using a novel dataset of revolutionary regimes since 1900. We contend that autocracies that emerge out of violent social revolution tend to confront extraordinary military threats, which lead to the development of cohesive ruling parties, powerful and loyal security apparatuses, as well as the destruction of alternative power centers. These characteristics account for revolutionary regimes’ unusual longevity.
Book
Rules of Repression: Military Regimes, Coercion, and Autocratic Survival (manuscript)
Book Chapters
“Repression of Islamists and Autocratic Survival in the Arab World.” In The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies. Eds. Melani Cammett and Pauline Jones. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, (forthcoming).
“Puissance et vulnérabilité de l’appareil sécuritaire égyptien.” In Soulèvements populaires et recompositions politiques dans le Monde arabe. Eds. Frédéric Vairel and Michel Camau. Montréal, Canada: University of Montreal Press, 2014.
Other Publications
Book Review: “Why Alliances Fail: Islamists and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa.” By Matt Buehler. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2018.” Perspectives on Politics (forthcoming).
“Why did Egyptian security see Giulio Regeni as a threat? ” The Monkey Cage, Washington Post, March 7, 2016.
“Crisis, Coercion, and Authoritarian Durability: Explaining Diverging Responses to Anti-Regime Protest in Egypt and Iran.” With Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way. Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law CDDRL Working Paper, Vol. 127, December 2012.
“Lessons from Egypt’s Tax Collectors.” Middle East Report (MERIP): 264, 2012.
“Preheating with Non-Standard Kinetic Term.” With Robert H. Brandenberger. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP). 4:20, 2009 (peer-reviewed, physics).
“Why did Egyptian security see Giulio Regeni as a threat? ” The Monkey Cage, Washington Post, March 7, 2016.
“Crisis, Coercion, and Authoritarian Durability: Explaining Diverging Responses to Anti-Regime Protest in Egypt and Iran.” With Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way. Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law CDDRL Working Paper, Vol. 127, December 2012.
“Lessons from Egypt’s Tax Collectors.” Middle East Report (MERIP): 264, 2012.
“Preheating with Non-Standard Kinetic Term.” With Robert H. Brandenberger. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP). 4:20, 2009 (peer-reviewed, physics).