Research
Books
Exit from International Organizations: Costly Negotiation for Institutional Change. 2025. Cambridge University Press, co-authored with Felicity Vabulas. [link to Cambridge] [Flyer 20% off] [Blog post] [replication files and appendix]
Winner of the International Studies Association Chadwick Alger Book Prize, for the best book on international organizations.
Reviewed in Review of International Organizations.
In this new book, we ask: why do states exit international organizations (IOs)? How often does exit from IOs – including voluntary withdrawal and forced suspension – occur? What are the effects of leaving IOs for the exiting state? Despite the importance of membership in IOs, a broader understanding of exit across states, organizations, and time has been limited. Exit from International Organizations addresses these lacunae through a theoretically grounded and empirically systematic study of IO exit. We argue that there is a common logic to IO exit which helps explain both its causes and consequences. By examining IO exit across 198 states, 534 IOs, and over a hundred years of history, we show that exit is driven by states’ dissatisfaction, preference divergence, and is a strategy to negotiate institutional change. The book also demonstrates that exit is costly because it has reputational consequences for leaving states and significantly affects other forms of international cooperation.
The Credibility Challenge: How Democracy Aid Influences Election Violence. 2019. Cornell University Press. [link to Cornell] [Flyer 30% off] [link to Amazon] [replication files]
Reviewed in Perspectives on Politics, Review of International Organizations, Democratization, Political Science Quarterly, Choice, the APSA Newsletter of the Democracy and Autocracy Section, and other outlets.
Related work on which the book is based won the Peace Dissertation Prize of the U.S. Institute of Peace and ISA’s Peace Studies Section. An earlier version of book chapter 4 received the Best Paper Prize of the Comparative Political Institutions Standing Group of the ECPR.
In my first book, I theorize and examine the effect of international election aid – both technical election assistance and observation – on violence before and after elections. I show that international election support influences election violence by changing election credibility. This cuts two ways. On the one hand, technical election assistance and observation can help build trust among domestic political stakeholders during the run-up to elections and thus decrease violence in the campaigning period. On the other hand, observers’ negative verdict about the credibility of the election result can increase violence in the wake of elections. I show that condemnations by international election monitors can fuel violence when electoral losers use these condemnations to mobilize supporters. This brings together research on international organizations’ effects, electoral politics, democratization and civil conflict. Utilizing original data, statistical analyses, case studies, and formal models, I examine election violence since 1990 in Africa and Latin America.
Articles
“Beyond the Ballot Box: The Effect of Election Violence on Electoral Participation in Africa,” with Michael Wahman. 2026. Journal of Peace Research. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“Public Support for Withdrawal from International Organizations: Experimental Evidence from the US,” with Felicity Vabulas. 2024. Review of International Organizations 19 (4): 809-845. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“When do Member State Withdrawals Lead to the Death of International Organizations?” with Felicity Vabulas. 2024. European Journal of International Relations 30 (3): 756-786. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“Global Governance from Below: Regional Sanctions as Drivers of UN Sanctions,” with Clara Portela. 2023. Journal of Conflict Resolution 67 (10): 1930-1958. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“When Do Withdrawal Threats Achieve Reform in Intergovernmental Organizations?” with Felicity Vabulas. 2023. Global Perspectives 4 (1): 1-18. Special issue edited by JP Singh (George Mason University) and Michael Woolcock (World Bank). [link] [pdf]
“On IGO Withdrawals by States vs Leaders, and Exogenous Measures for Inference,” with Felicity Vabulas. 2022. Review of International Organizations 17 (1): 217-222. [link] [pdf]
“Fear of Campaign Violence and Support for Democracy and Autocracy,” with Ursula Daxecker and Patrick Kuhn. 2022. Conflict Management and Peace Science. 39 (5): 542-564. [link] [pdf] [replication files] [appendix]
“Systematic Measurement Error in Election Violence Data: Causes and Consequences,” with Michael Wahman. 2021. British Journal of Political Science 51 (1): 230-252. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“Dangerously Informed: Voter Information and Pre-Electoral Violence in Africa,” with Patrick Kuhn. 2020. Journal of Peace Research 57 (1): 15–29. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“The Risks of Election Observation: International Condemnation and Post-Election Violence.” 2019. International Studies Quarterly 63 (3): 654-667. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“Hello, Goodbye: When do States Withdraw from International Organizations?” with Felicity Vabulas. 2019. Review of International Organizations 14 (2): 335–366. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
* Winner of the APSA Best Article Award of the International Collaboration Section
“Credible Commitments? Explaining IGO Suspensions to Sanction Political Backsliding,” with Felicity Vabulas. 2019. International Studies Quarterly 63 (1): 139-152. [link] [pdf] [replication files and appendix]
“Resisting Democracy Assistance: Who Seeks and Receives Technical Election Assistance?” 2016. Review of International Organizations 11 (2): 247-282. [link] [pdf] [replication files]
Book Chapters
“International Election Support,” with Daniela Donno. 2025. In Oxford Handbook of Electoral Integrooty Research Methods in International Relations, ed. Holly Ann Garnett and Toby James.
“Democracy Assistance by International Organizations,” with Mert Kartal. 2023. In Handbook on Democracy and Security, ed. Nicholas Seltzer and Steven Wilson, 84-111.
“International Relations and Regime Type,” with Mert Kartal. 2022. In Handbook of Research Methods in International Relations, ed. Joseph Huddleston, Tom Jamieson, and Patrick James, 105-139.
“Peacemaking and Election Violence,” with Richard Saunders. 2021. In Contemporary Peacemaking, ed. Roger Mac Ginty and Anthony Wanis, 307-331.
“Sanctions Cooperation and Regional Organizations,” with Clara Portela. 2018. In Inter-Organizational Relations and International Security, ed. Stephen Aris, Aglaya Snetkov, and Andreas Wenger, pp. 240-261. [link]
“International Organizations in World Politics,” with Jon Pevehouse. 2016. In The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations, edited by Jacob Katz Cogan, Ian Hurd and Ian Johnstone, pp. 3-32. [link] [pdf]
“Regional Leaders, Regional Institutions and the Diffusion of Democracy: Prospects for South and East Asia.” 2011. In Democratization Around the World: New Insights from South East Asia, Turkey, Kosovo, Taiwan and Ghana, ed. Daniel Stockemer, pp. 71-107.
Book Reviews
“How States Die: Membership and Survival in the International System, by Douglas Lemke.” 2025. Perspectives on Politics.
“Monitors and Meddlers: How Foreign Actors Influence Local Trust in Elections, by Sarah Bush and Lauren Prather.” 2025. International Security Studies Forum (ISSF) H-Diplo roundtable. [link]
“Rules and Allies: Foreign Election Interventions, by Johannes Bubeck and Nikolay Marinov.” 2020. Perspectives on Politics 18 (3): 911-913. [link]
“Aiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State Violence, by Jessica Trisko Darden.” 2020. Democracy and Autocracy 18 (1): 23-24 (APSA Section Newsletter). [link]
“Organizing Democracy: How International Organizations Assist New Democracies” by Paul Poast and Johannes Urpelainen. 2019. Review of International Organizations 14 (3): 577-580. [link]
In Progress
“When Do IO Withdrawals Represent Backlash Politics?” with Felicity Vabulas.
“Fear of Election Violence, Urban Geography, and Democratic Participation,” with Michael Wahman.
Other Publications
“War in Ukraine: what steps can international organizations take?” 2022. Blog post at UCL’s Conflict and Change Center. [link]
“Voter Information in Developing Countries: Is It Always a Good Thing?” 2020. Podcast for UCL’s Uncovering Politics. [link]
“Suspension and Withdrawal from International Organizations.” 2018. Podcast for WZB/Berlin Social Science Center Blog Orders Beyond Borders. [link]
“When are states kicked out of international organizations?” 2018. Blog post at FSU’s College of Social Sciences. [link]
“What Works in Preventing Election Violence: Evidence from Liberia and Kenya,” with Jonas Claes. 2018. US Institute of Peace (USIP) Peace Works no 143. [link] [pdf]
“Preventing Election Violence in Liberia,” with Jonas Claes. 2017. US Institute of Peace (USIP) Peace Brief no 229. [link] [pdf]
“Electing Peace in Liberia,” with Jonas Claes. 2017. King’s College London’s Electoral Violence: Explaining and Mitigating Blog. [link]
“Does Election Violence Make Citizens Hate Democracy and Love Autocracy? Evidence for 19 sub-Saharan African Countries,” with Patrick Kuhn. 2016. King’s College London’s Electoral Violence: Explaining and Mitigating Blog. [link]
“Will the E.U. suspend Poland? Here Are 3 Reasons That’s Unlikely,” with Felicity Vabulas. 2016. Washington Post’s Monkey Cage. [link]