Political and economic outcomes depend, in part, on the quality of the officials making policy. Many scholars argue that the free and fair elections are the best method for selecting competent officials. Others, however, argue that elections can lead to the selection of amateurs, demagogues, and...

Available evidence indicates that there is considerable variation among autocracies in the extent to which subnational officials are rewarded for economic growth. Why is economic performance used as a criterion for appointment in some autocracies but not in others? We argue that in more...

Political and economic outcomes depend, in part, on the quality of the officials making policy. Many scholars argue that the free and fair elections are the best method for selecting competent officials. Others, however, argue that elections can lead to the selection of amateurs, demagogues, and...

Scholars associate bureaucratic quality with economic development. One particularly important component of a well-functioning bureaucracy is meritocratic promotion. This paper explores the conditions under which politicians will appoint high-level bureaucrats on the basis of economic...

What factors affect citizens' engagement with the state? We explore this question through a study of victims' and bystanders' willingness to report crimes to the police, using data from survey experiments conducted in Russia and Georgia. We find that citizens' willingness to report in both...

There is a large literature on the causes of clientelism, but fewer studies examine its effectiveness. We argue that the effectiveness of clientelism depends on 1) the identity of the broker who mediates clientelist exchange and 2) the type of inducement that is used. Using framing experiments...

Scholars have identified many ways that politicians use carrots, such as vote buying, to mobilize voters, but have paid far less attention to how they use sticks, such as voter intimidation. We develop a simple argument which suggests that voter intimidation should be especially likely where...

Elite cohesion is one of the fundamental pillars of authoritarian regime stability. Defections from the ruling coalition can signal regime weakness, embolden the opposition, and, sometimes, lead to regime collapse. Using a unique dataset on 4,313 regional legislative candidates from Russia's...

Do local elections under autocracy help the poor? We argue that local appointees in electoral authoritarian regimes have political incentives that undermine public service provision; regime leaders' preoccupation with national electoral control encourages them to overlook local governance...

Elections are among the most important and least understood institutions in contemporary authoritarian regimes. Theoretically, electoral authoritarian regimes should have an informational advantage that makes them more robust than other types of authoritarian regimes, but much empirical evidence...