Academic Appointments

2021- Associate Professor, Political Science

University of South Carolina

2019-2021 Assistant Professor, Political Science
University of South Carolina

2015-2018 Assistant Professor, Political Science
West Virginia University

Education

Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, May 2015.
          Dissertation: ''Castling the King: Institutional Sequencing and Regime Change.''
          Advisor: Gretchen Casper
          Committee: Joseph Wright, James Piazza, Melissa Hardy
M.A.,   Pennsylvania State University, 2011.
          Thesis: ''A Discreet Critique of Discrete Regime Type Data.''
B.S.,   Clemson University, 2009, Summa cum Laude, Honors in Global Politics
          Honors thesis: ''Determinants of Household Migration from an Ethnic Perspective.''

Publications

Journal Articles
2023 "Episodes of Regime Transformation."Journal of Peace Research
          (with Seraphine F. Maerz, Amanda B Edgell, Sebastian Hellmeier, and Staffan I Lindberg).
2023 "Concept Mapping and Reading Comprehension."Journal of Political Science Education
          (with Christopher Howell, Kelsey Martin-Morales, and Sanghoon Park).
2023 "Contestation and participation: Concepts, measurement, and inference."
          International Area Studies Review (with Vanessa Boese).
2022 "Episodes of Liberalization in Autocracies: A New Approach to Quantitatively Studying Democratization."
          Political Science Research and Methods (with Juraj Medzihorsky, Seraphine F. Maerz, Patrik Lindenfors,
           Amanda Edgell, Vanessa Boese, and Staffan Lindberg).
2020   "Geographical Coverage in Political Science Research." Perspectives on Politics (with Carl Henrik Knutsen).
2020   "The Matthew effect in political science: head start and key reforms important for democratization."
          Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 7(106) (with Staffan Lindberg and Patrik Lindenfors).
2019   "A Closer Look at the Limits of Consociationalism." Comparative Political Studies.

2019 "Contested or Established? A Comparison of Legislative Powers across Regimes."
Democratization, 26(4): 585-605 (with Josef Woldense).

2018   ''State of the world 2017: autocratization and exclusion?'' Democratization
           (with Anna Lührmann, Valeriya Mechkova, Sirianne Dahlum, Laura Maxwell, Moa Olin,
           Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca, Rachel Sigman, and Staffan I. Lindberg).
2018   ''Crowdsourcing and Self-Instruction: Turning the Production of Teaching Materials into a Learning Objective.''
           Journal of Political Science Education, 14(3): 400-408.
2018   ''Militarism and Dual-Conflict Capacity.''
           International Interactions, 44(1): 156-172 (with Carla Martinez-Machain).
2017   ''Trends in Political Science Research and the Progress of Comparative Politics.''
           PS: Political Science & Politics, 50(4): 979-984.
2017   ''Understanding the experiences, attitudes, and behaviors of sexual orientation and gender identity
           minority employees.''
           Journal of Vocational Behavior, 103: 1-6 (with Larry R. Martinez and Katina B. Sawyer).
2017   ''Autocratic Legislatures and Expropriation Risk.''
           British Journal of Political Science, 47(1): 1-17 (with Joseph Wright).
2015   ''Using Sequences to Model Crises.''
           Political Science Research and Methods, 3(2): 381-397 (with Gretchen Casper).
2014   ''A Discreet Critique of Discrete Regime Type Data.''
           Comparative Political Studies, 47(5): 689-714.
2013   ''Dictatorships and Terrorism: Conditioning Effects of Regime Type on Terrorism.''
           American Journal of Political Science, 57(4): 941–955 (with James Piazza).

Books
2021   One road to riches? How state building and democratization affect economic development.
           Cambridge Elements Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
           (with Carl Henrik Knutsen, Tore Wig, and Haakon Gjerløw).

Book Chapters
2019   ''Time and Regime Change.'' In The Oxford Handbook of Time and Politics, Klaus Goetz (Ed.).
           Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
2014   ''Governance Built Step-by-Step: Analyzing Sequences to Explain Democratization.''
           In Advances in Sequence Analysis: Methods, Theories and Applications, Philippe Blanchard, Jacques-Antione,
           Gauthier and Felix Bühlmann (Eds.). New York: Springer.

Working Papers
2021    "A Framework for Understanding Regime Transformation: Introducing the ERT Dataset."
University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 113
    (with Seraphine F. Maerz, Amanda B. Edgell, Sebastian Hellmeier, and Staffan I. Lindberg).
2020    "Empirical Dimensions of Electoral Democracy."
University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 109
   (with Vanessa A. Boese).
2020    "Democratic Legacies: Using Democratic Stock to Assess Norms, Growth, and Regime Trajectories."
University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 100
   (with Amanda B. Edgell, Vanessa A. Boese, and Sandra Grahn).
2018    "Strengthening the Rubber Stamp: Comparing Legislative Powers across Regimes."
University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 82 (with Josef Woldense).

2018 "Successful and Failed Episodes of Democratization: Conceptualization, Identification, and Description."

University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 79

(with Staffan I. Lindberg, Patrik Lindenfors, Anna Lührmann, Laura Maxwell, Juraj Medzihorsky, and

Richard Morgan).

2018   ''Stairways to Denmark: Does the Sequence of State-building and Democratization Matter for Economic
            Development?'' University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No.72
           (with Haakon Gjerlow, Carl Henrik Knutsen, and Tore Wig).
2017   ''Autocratic Legislatures and Party Institutionalization.''
            University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 7.
2016   ''Beyond First Elections: The Importance of Consistency in the Timing of Recurrent Elections.''
           University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 32
           (with Staffan Lindberg).

Media Contributions
2022   Episodes of Regime Transformation: Improving our Understanding of Democratization and Autocratization.
          PodScholars.com, 16 October.
2022   Nicaragua has kicked out hundreds of NGOs –
          even cracking down on Catholic groups like nuns from Mother Teresa’s order.
          The Conversation. 30 September (with Kelsey Martin Morales).
2022   What's a banana republic? A political scientist explains.
          The Conversation, 12 August.
          Re-published by Interesse Nacional, 25 August, and The Academic Minute, 08 September.
2018   One-third of the world's population lives in a declining democracy. That includes the United States.
          The Monkey Cage, Washington Post, 04 July (with Anna Lührmann).
2017   Is democracy on the decline? Not as much as some pundits want you to believe.
          The Monkey Cage, Washington Post, 26 June (with Anna Lührmann and Valeriya Mechkova).

Media Mentions

2018 John Oliver, Last Week Tonight. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ximgPmJ9A5s).

2018 Jeffrey Sachs, "Trump is taking US down the path to tyranny." CNN, 24 July 2018.

Other Contributions
2022   ''Empirical Indicators of Democracy and Authoritarianism.''
           Annotated bibliography entry in The Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford University Press
           (with Sanghoon Park).
2021   ''Episodes of Regime Transformation: Assessing Democratization and Autocratization since 1900.''
           The American Political Science Association Comparative Politics Democratization Newsletter, 31(1): 5-14
           (with Amanda Edgell and Seraphine F. Maerz).
2020   ''Geographical Coverage in Political Science Research.'' Midwest Political Science Association, 07 October
           (with Carl Henrik Knutsen).
2020   ''Democracy and Freedom during Covid-19.'' Codebook v.1.1.
2020  ''Teaching Tactics: A Simple Hack for Maintaining Personal Connections to Students.''
           Incubator for Teaching Innovation, College of Arts & Sciences at the University of South Carolina, 13 April.
           Re-published by the Midwest Political Science Association, 17 June.
2018  ''Comparative Trends.''
2018   ''Crowd-Sourcing and Self-Instruction.'' Active Learning in Political Science, 13 August.
2018   ''The Value of Descriptive Sequences in Historical Institutionalist Research.''
          The American Political Science Association (APSA-CD) Comparative Democratization Newsletter, 16(2): 9-13.
2018   ''United States: Liberal Democracy Under Stress.'' V-Dem Annual Democracy Report.

Convention Activities

Panel Activity
           American Political Science Association meetings: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022.
           Midwest Political Science Association meetings: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023.
           Southern Political Science Association meetings: 2015, 2016, 2017.
           European Consortium for Political Research meetings: 2011, 2019.
           International Political Science Association meetings: 2011, 2021.
           Latin American Studies Association: 2014, 2015.
           Peace Science Society: 2009, 2010, 2011.
           Society for Political Methodology: 2012.

Grants and Awards

2022   Faculty Research Initiative, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina, $9044.
2021   McCausland Faculty Fellowship, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina, $20000.
2020   College of Arts and Sciences Innovative Teaching Associate, University of South Carolina, $10000.
2014   Alumni Association Dissertation Award, PSU, $5000.
2013   Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Department of Political Science, PSU, $1500.
2013   Career Development Award, Center for Global Studies, PSU, $2000.
2013   Comparative Initiative, Department of Political Science, PSU, $2000.
2013   Research Grant on Democratic Innovation, Penn State Democracy Institute, PSU, $2000.
2012   RGSO College Dissertation Support Competition, College of Liberal Arts, PSU, $2000.
2011   Nordic Research Opportunity (NRO), $12,000.
2011   National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP), $30,000 per year for 3 years.
2011   Conference Travel Award, University of Lausanne, $2000.
2009   Graduate Fellowship, Phi Theta Kappa, $4000.
2009-  Conference Travel Awards, Department of Political Science, PSU, $8000.
2009   Award for Most Outstanding Undergraduate Research, College of Business and Behavioral Science,
          Clemson University, $500.
2009   Faculty Scholarship Award, Clemson University.
2009   James F. Byrnes Award, Department of Political Science, Clemson University.

Professional Experience

Temporary and other Appointments
2018-  Research Fellow, Varieties of Democracy Project, University of Gothenburg.
2014   Visiting Scholar, Vanderbilt University.
2013   Visiting Scholar, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica (CIDE),
          Mexico City, Mexico (Fall).
2012   Visiting Scholar, Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Oslo, Norway (Summer).

Invited Talks and Conferences
2023   Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, January.
2022   Research work and Workshop on Authoritarian Regimes, Sendai, Japan, October.
2019   Workshop on Autocratic Legislatures, London, United Kingdom, December.
2019   Varieties of Democracy Internal Research Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, May.
2018   Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, December.
2018   University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, November.
2018   Varieties of Democracy Internal Research Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, May.
2018   Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom, April.
2017   University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany, November.
2017   Varieties of Democracy Internal Research Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, May.
2017   The New Politics of Authoritarianism, Oxford, United Kingdom, March.
2016   University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, January.
2014   University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom, December.
2013   Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica (CIDE), Mexico City, Mexico, October.
2012   Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Norway, June.
2012   Conference on Sequence Analysis, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, June.
2011   University of North Carolina Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, September.

Fieldwork Experience
2013   Field research in Mexico City, Mexico, August-November.
2007   Field research in Otavalo, Ecuador, May-July.

Research Interests
          Comparative Politics: Democratization; Autocracy; Comparative institutions, Civil Conflict.
          International Relations: Civil Conflict, Democratic Diffusion, Autocracy.
          Political Methodology: Quantitative methods; Time dependence; Sequence analysis.

Teaching Interests
          Comparative Politics: Political Institutions; Democratization and Authoritarianism; Latin American Politics.
          International Relations: Civil Conflict.
          Political Methodology: Research Design and Methods; Linear Regression, Maximum Likelihood Estimation.

Teaching Experience
2023   Dictatorship and Democratization (U), Advanced Methods of Political Analysis (G),
          Introduction to Politics (U).
2022   Dictatorship and Democracy (G), Advanced Methods of Political Analysis (G),
          American National Government (U).
2021   Introduction to Global Politics (U), Advanced Methods of Political Analysis (G),
          American National Government (U).
2020   Introduction to Global Politics (U), Advanced Methods of Political Analysis (G),
          American National Government (U).
2019   Governments of Latin America (U), Dictatorship and Democracy (G), American National Government (U).
2017   Dictatorship and Democratization (U), Dictatorship and Democracy (G).
2016   Governments of Latin America (U), Introduction to Comparative Politics (U), Advanced Quantitative Analysis (G).
2015   Democracy and Dictatorship (U), Comparative Politics Core Seminar (G).
2014   Invited lecturer, graduate seminar on Sequence Analysis. University of Warwick, Coventry,
          United Kingdom, December.
2014   Instructor, Dictators and their Demise (PL SC 414)—Spring, Pennsylvania State University.
2011   Cosponsor, short course on Sequence Analysis, American Political Science Association—Fall
          (with Philippe Blanchard).

Ph.D. Dissertation Chair
Current             Kuan-Wu Chen
Current             Sanghoon Park
Current             Kelsey Martin-Morales

Ph.D. Dissertation Committees
Current             Rahul Hemrajani
Current             Madison Shanks
Current             Emily Harmon
Current             Adam Alrowaiti (Student, West Virginia University)
2021                 Shaoshuang Wen (Visiting Assistant Professor, Colgate University)

Professional Service Activities

Department Service
2022-  Graduate director, Department of Political Science, University of South Carolina.
          Committee service, University of South Carolina:
                  Advisory committee, Scholarship committee.
2021   Committee service, University of South Carolina:
                  Comprehensive exam chair, Graduate committee.
          Judge, Internal Graduate Research Competition, University of South Carolina.
2020   Committee service, University of South Carolina:
                  Comprehensive exam grader, Graduate committee.
2019   Committee service, University of South Carolina:
                  Graduate committee, Undergraduate scholarships committee,
                  Comprehensive exams committee,
                  Task force on B.S. degree in political analysis.
2019   Judge, Internal Graduate Research Competition, University of South Carolina.
2017   Head of Graduate Professionalization Colloquia, West Virginia University.
2017   Workshop Organizer, Consortium for Faculty and Course Development in International Studies.
2015-2017   Committee service, West Virginia University:
                  Comprehensive exams committee, Graduate professionalization committee,
                  Search committee, Undergraduate scholarships committee.

University Service
2022-  Distributed Learning Advisory Board, University of South Carolina.
2021-  Graduate Council, University of South Carolina.
2020-  Truman Fellowship Committee, University of South Carolina.
2020-  Carolina Judicial Council, University of South Carolina.
2021-2022   Walker Institute Search Committee, University of South Carolina.

Past or Present Membership in Professional Associations
          American Political Science Association (APSA), European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR),
          International Studies Association (ISA), International Political Science Association (IPSA),
          Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA),
          Peace Science Society (International) (PSS), Society for Political Methodology (PolMeth),
          Southern Political Science Association (SPSA).

Reviewing
          Acta Política, American Journal of Political Science, Bulletin of Latin American Research,
          Comparative Political Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Constitutional Political Economy,
          Contemporary Politics, Economics of Governance, Government and Opposition, International Interactions,
          International Migration, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of African and Asian Studies,
          Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, Journal of Comparative Politics,
          Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Defense and Peace Economics, Journal of Peace Research,
          Journal of Political Science Education, Journal of Politics, Latin American Politics and Society, Polity,
          Political Opinion Quarterly, PS: Politics & Political Science, Research and Politics, Revista de Ciencia Politica,
          Social Science Research, Terrorism and Political Violence, World Politics.

Other Activities
2021   Discussant and Chair, Conference of the Taiwan and Asia Program.
          Gamecock Teaching Days, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina.
2020-  MPSA mentor.
2020   MPSA virtual panel on online education, 05 June.
2020   Conversations About Teaching (CAT Corner), University of South Carolina, 04 March.
2019-  Faculty Associate, Walker Institute of International Studies, University of South Carolina.
2019   Participant, INCUBATE Design Challenge, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina.
2019   Participant, APSA Preprints Panel.
2017  Faculty Chaperone and Translator, Global Brigades trip to Nicaragua.
2015-2017  Faculty Associate, Latin American Studies Program, WVU.
2013   Volunteer, Ralph Bunche workshop on CV writing.
2011   President, the Graduate Association for Political Science, PSU.
2011   Assistant to the Executive Director, Peace Science Society—Glenn Palmer, Department of Political Science,
          Pennsylvania State University: managed subscriptions for Conflict Management and Peace Science,
          the Journal of Peace Research, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and International Interactions.
          Managed memberships to the Peace Science Society, organized annual meetings of the Peace Science Society;
          and scheduled departmental presentations as part of a department series.

Professional Skills

Languages
          English: native. Spanish: fluent. French: elementary comprehension.
Programming
          R, STATA, LaTeX, Perl, Python.

Last upated May 2023.

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