Research Interests
My research investigates why some nations achieve stability and prosperity while others falter. Addressing this question through international and comparative political economy, I examine how state capacity, a government’s ability to implement policy, shapes developmental trajectories. My work centers on three core themes: the determinants and impacts of state capacity, especially in response to leadership transitions and emergencies; the dynamics of political demography, analyzing how population shifts from wars and refugee flows influence political stability and electoral behavior; and the conditions for successful post-war recovery. Across these areas, I employ quantitative methods and develop original data resources to provide empirically grounded insights. A key contribution is my role as a principal investigator for the Relative Political Capacity (RPC) Dataset, which offers new tools for evaluating the political performance of nations.
Publications
Here is a selection of my published academic research.
National Leadership and State Capacity – Politics & Policy
This article investigates the crucial question: Do national leaders truly matter for a state’s ability to function? Using a dataset of over 1,000 leaders in 159 countries from 1960 to 2015, the study finds that leadership changes and shifts in their support coalitions have a significant impact on state capacity. However, this impact is heavily moderated by the country’s political institutions. In systems with fewer institutional constraints (or “veto players”), leaders have a much greater ability to effect change. To isolate the causal effect of leadership, the study uses the natural experiment of leaders who die unexpectedly in office, confirming that leadership transitions are most impactful in their immediate aftermath. The findings underscore the critical connection between leadership and institutional dynamics in shaping governance.
Demographic Consequences of Major Wars – International Interactions
This study examines the demographic aftermath of major wars between 1914 and 2010 and identifies the key factors that drive post-war population recovery. The analysis reveals that, contrary to what one might expect, populations tend to recover to their pre-war levels within a single generation, often driven by significant post-war “baby booms”. However, the pace of this recovery is not uniform. The research finds that higher state political capacity is consistently associated with a faster recovery. Other factors, such as foreign aid and human capital, also play important roles, though their impact varies across different economic contexts. By integrating insights from political demography, international relations, and population studies, this work aims to inform more effective policies for post-conflict reconstruction.
Shock the System: Emergency Powers and Political Capacity, with Bryan Rooney – Governance
This article challenges the assumption that granting leaders emergency powers during a crisis will automatically improve a government’s performance. We argue that the relationship between emergency powers and a state’s political capacity depends on both the nature of the emergency and the type of capacity in question. Analyzing democracies from 1961 to 2005, we find that while emergency powers do help governments extract more resources (e.g., taxes) from the public during a crisis, these resources are not always allocated efficiently. Specifically, emergency powers improve the allocation of resources during national political emergencies but lead to inefficient allocation and hinder performance following extra-territorial crises. This suggests that emergency powers are not a panacea and that their effectiveness is highly dependent on context.
A Dynamic Model of the Spread of Intrastate War – All Azimuth
This article develops a novel model to understand how civil wars spread across borders to neighboring countries. Drawing from epidemiology, the study modifies the “SIR” (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered) model for the spread of disease to analyze conflict contagion. In this framework, refugees from a conflict-ridden state can act as a vector, transmitting the “disease” of war by creating social and economic disturbances in the host country. The model shows that the host country’s political capacity acts as an “immune system,” with higher capacity making the country more resilient and reducing the likelihood that the conflict will spread. This systems dynamics approach offers a new way to conceptualize conflict diffusion and provides clear policy implications for managing regional instability.
The Middle East: Northern Tier – in The Rise of Nations: Conflict and Cooperation
This chapter applies Power Transition theory to analyze the complex regional hierarchy of the Middle East’s “Northern Tier”. The analysis identifies Turkey and Iran as the two main competitors for regional dominance. While Turkey is currently the most powerful country in the region, Iran remains a close challenger. Using quantitative forecasts, the chapter explores potential future scenarios, showing that a power transition between the two rivals is possible if Iran experiences sustained high growth, creating a dangerous parity that could lead to conflict. The chapter concludes that the future stability of this volatile region will largely depend on how the rivalry between Turkey and Iran is managed, a dynamic that is also influenced by the involvement of external great powers.
The Costs of the Syrian Civil War and Propositions for Syria’s Post-War Recovery – Global Relations Forum Policy Paper
This policy paper assesses the catastrophic costs of the Syrian Civil War and provides a roadmap for the country’s post-war reconstruction. Using a standardized measure of “years forgone” from pre-war development trends, the analysis demonstrates that the conflict has cost Syria nearly 50 years of economic progress, placing it on a trajectory toward a long-term poverty trap. The paper proposes a multi-stage recovery plan that prioritizes establishing stability and providing essential services in the short term, followed by long-term strategies to reclaim human capital, rebuild industrial and social capital, and strengthen state capacity. It also analyzes the immense financial challenge of reconstruction—estimated at up to $350 billion—and evaluates the potential roles of various international actors in funding and coordinating this critical effort.
System Dynamics Modeling in International Relations – All Azimuth
This article serves as a primer on system dynamics modeling, a powerful but underutilized tool in political science and international relations. It explains how this approach differs from traditional quantitative methods by focusing on causal mechanisms, feedback loops, and the evolution of complex systems over time. The paper outlines the history of the method, its core components, and its primary advantages, such as the ability to model nonlinear relationships and simulate alternative policy scenarios. Using an accessible model of an international arms race as an example, the article demonstrates how system dynamics can be used to tackle intricate political problems and generate novel theoretical insights.
- An adjusted version is published as a chapter in Uluslararası İlişkilerde Metodoloji (Methodology in International Relations), edited by Ersel Aydınlı, Koc University Press.
Refugees and Elections: The Effects of Syrians on Voting Behavior in Turkey, with Deniz Sert – International Migration
In the wake of the Syrian civil war, Turkey became host to the world’s largest refugee population, raising questions about the political impact of this massive influx. This article empirically investigates whether the presence of over three million Syrian refugees affected voting behavior in Turkey’s 2015 general election. Using a unique province-level dataset and multiple regression techniques, we compare voting patterns in provinces with large refugee populations to those with few. Counter to expectations derived from European cases, our findings show a negative but statistically insignificant impact on the vote share of the incumbent party. The article explores several explanations for this result, including the power of partisanship, the role of public service delivery, and the framing of the issue by political elites.
Consequences of Reversing the European Union Integration, with Jacek Kugler and Birol Yesilada – Foreign Policy Analysis
This article uses the Power Transition theory to analyze the consequences of a potential reversal of European integration. The study combines a regression analysis of EU members from 1973 to 2011 with forward-looking simulations of global power dynamics. The analysis finds that integration is driven by the relative power of the dominant regional actor, Germany, and the level of trust member states have in EU institutions. The projections indicate that a fragmented Europe would consist of minor global players, whereas a cohesive and expanded EU is necessary to balance the rise of Asian powers, such as China and India. The paper concludes that the stakes of EU integration are not merely economic but are critical to regional and global stability.