Papers

1. Growing up in the Third Wave: democratic transitions and attitudes about redistribution [Working paper] [Supplemental materials]
Abstract: Variation in experiences of democratic transition have durable effects on political attitudes. Using survey data from 28 countries that transitioned during the Third Wave (1980-2000), I show these effects cannot be attributed to any secular period effect, survey period effect, birth cohort effect, or country-specific time-invariant characteristics. They are also roust to the inclusion of past experiences of the economy and welfare state, individual controls, and a range of modeling strategies. Using a different source of variation in democratic transitions 2001-2020, I show that transitions cause attitudes and not the other way around. I argue that many failures of democracy in Third Wave countries are caused by the nature of which they originated: distributive transitions produced democratic collective imaginaries irreconcilable with the amount of democratic redistribution that was forthcoming.
 
2. "OK, Generation X:" growing up under neoliberalism and beliefs about a just world 
Abstract: Variation in the political ideologies we are exposed to as young people account for a range of between-generation differences in political attitudes. Using cross-national differences in national economic conditions in OECD countries, I estimate the impact of growing up under neoliberal policies on future beliefs about economic justice. Using a "quasi-cohort" fixed effects design, I find that economic growth, unemployment, or levels of redistribution between the ages of 20 and 25 have no effect on respondent beliefs about a just world. However, the ideological context has a significant and lasting effect: those socialized in the "neoliberal era" (1981-2008, i.e., Generation X) are more likely to have optimistic views about income equality, competition, wealth accumulation, and private business. Neoliberal socialization has no effect on confidence in the government or other social values, implying it affects attitudes by incentivizing the adoption of new "scripts of personhood" that center the role of work and merit in determining what is "just." 
  • Presented at Harvard Comparative Politics workshop (March 2021)
3. Ideas of democracy and Chinese welfare states 
Historical institutionalist analysis of welfare state development in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
 
4. Long road to freedom in Afghanistan: attitudes about democracy under U.S. occupation 
Analysis of cross-sectional survey data from Afghanistan (2001-2019)