About Me

I am a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My work focuses on focuses on authoritarianism and how authoritarians manage and seek to influence both supporters and opposition.

I recently published a book (with Samuel A. Greene), Putin v. The People, published by Yale University (June 2019). The book presents a fresh new look at the social bases of support for and opposition to authoritarian rule in Russia. I am also the author of Revolution and Reform in Ukraine, published by PONARS Eurasia (with Silviya Nitsova and Grigore Pop-Eleches) and The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes: Managing Dissent in Post-Communist Russia, published by Cambridge University Press.

I have published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles in leading academic journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the American Political Science Review, and the American Journal of Political Science, and I am a frequent contributor to the Washington Post, the New Statesman and other media outlets.

I currently serve as the Associate Editor for Comparative Politics for the American Journal of Political Science.