Research agenda

I study the international and domestic politics of statebuilding, sovereignty, and state development. Specifically, my research seeks to understand how the modern state came to be, and to explain variation in stateness, defined as the degree to which countries possess the characteristics of the modern state.

My work conceives of modern statehood as encompassing the constitutive features of the state, such as its possession of sovereignty and territory, as well as the institutions and functions of the state. These include resource appropriation, regulation, adjudication, protection, and the provision of public goods and services. Stateness is highly variable across space and over time. My research seeks to understand why.

My exploration of the politics of state development unfolds across four major research projects:

1. Foreign subversion of state authority as a tool of statecraft.
2. The domestic and historical determinants of state development.
3. International statebuilding after war.
4. Dependent territories in international relations.

In addition, I have several related publications that explore variation in stateness.

View my Google Scholar page here. Please email me for copies of working papers.

Learn more about my work on the state and see a description of working papers by research project:

International influences on state weakness
Historical state development
International statebuilding after war
Dependent territories in international relations
Related papers on stateness