Research

Dissertation Project

Title: “Evaluating The Long-Term Effects of Communist Violence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia”

My dissertation studies the long-term effects of exposure to political violence on protest and voting behavior, with a specific focus on Soviet repressions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. I asks two main questions: First, how do people learn about state-sponsored violence that occurred in their families and communities? Second, how does knowledge of past repression affect political behavior generations later? 

I explore these questions by studying how Stalinist mass repressions shape contemporary political behavior in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. My project focuses on three former Soviet countries that share a history of violence but differ considerably in their current political institutions: Moldova, Estonia, and Kazakhstan. I rely on evidence from original, cross-national surveys and semi-structured interviews to unpack the ways that the legacies of historical violence continue to shape political behavior across the region.

Publicity: Comrat State University (Gagauzia, Moldova); town of Ceadir-Lunga (Gagauzia, Moldova); Avdarma History Museum (Gagauzia, Moldova); interview in Veridica.md; Institute of Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies (Almaty, Kazakhstan); article in Peripheral Histories.

Visiting Scholar: Johan Skytte Institute, University of Tartu (Estonia) from August-October 2025 and Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan) from October-December 2025.

Funding Sources: Bobst Center for Peace & Justice (Princeton); Niehaus Center for Global Governance (Princeton); Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies; P.E.O. International; Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies; and others.

Academic Working Papers

  • Legacies of Political Violence
    • “Socio-Economic Development and Uneven Legacies of Authoritarian Repression.” Conditionally accepted at the Journal of Historical Political Economy. Click for draft.
    • “Family Repression and Political Mobilization Across Regime Types.”
    • “The Enemy of my (Historical) Enemy is My Friend: Evidence from the Wołyń Massacre.” With Frances Cayton. Draft available upon request.
  • Public Opinion in Eastern Europe
    • “The Threshold Effect: Separating Preference Falsification From Weak Preferences in Russian Attitudes Toward the War in Ukraine.” With Grigore Pop-Eleches and Jacob Tucker. Revise & Resubmit at the British Journal of Political Science.
    • “Countering Authoritarian Propaganda: Evidence from Russia at War.” With Laura Howells, Grigore Pop-Eleches and Jacob Tucker. Draft available upon request.
    • “Inducing Support for Ukraine at War: A Cross-Country Survey Experiment in Eastern Europe.” With Felix Beilin, Laura Howells, Grigore Pop-Eleches, and Jacob Tucker. Work in progress.
    • “The Political Consequences of Wartime Casualties in Russia.” With Laura Howells, Grigore Pop-Eleches, and Jacob Tucker. Work in progress.
  • Revolutions
    • “How Exile Escalates Revolution.” With Elizabeth R. Nugent. Under review. Click for draft.
    • “The Effects of Revolution on Deforestation.” With Camille DeSisto. Draft available upon request.
  • Local Governance in Ukraine
    • “Decentralization and Attitudes Toward Local Governance in Ukraine.” With Grigore Pop-Eleches and Graeme Robertson. Revise & Resubmit at Comparative Political Studies.
    • “The War of the Mayors: Decentralization and Ukrainian Resistance Against Russia’s Invasion.” Work in progress.

Russia Watcher Project

I am also a founding member and co-researcher on the Russia Watcher project, which is dedicated to studying Russian public opinion in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Alongside colleagues from Princeton – Grigo Pop-Eleches (PI), Laura Howells, and Jacob Tucker – I have been running daily online surveys in Russia since mid-May 2022.

Social Media: X (formerly Twitter); Bluesky.

Publicity: Foreign Policy Research Institute; The New York Times; The Moscow Times; The Hill and elsewhere.

Funding Sources: National Science Foundation; Bobst Center for Peace and Justice (Princeton); Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (Princeton); Data-Driven Social Science Initiative (Princeton); School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton) and others.

Past Research Projects