Diagnosing Threats to Democracy. University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation Forum (June 18, 2022).

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Immune to COVID? The Striking Resilience of International Organisations, LSE COVID-19 Blog, (July 13, 2021)

(with Hylke Dijkstra) 

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Trump's 'America First' Approach has Targeted International Institutions -  But they've proved to be resilient. The Loop, (November 25, 2020) (with Hylke Dijkstra) 

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How Global Efforts to Promote Regional Organizations Can Strengthen Authoritarian Regimes. Scholars Strategy Network, (June 4, 2018). 

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Fatma gegen Goliath. Frauen erlangen das Wahlrecht in Saudi-Arabien. [Fatma vs Goliath. Women gain the Right to Vote in Saudi Arabia.] Mediterranes 1/2016, 40-41.

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Der Club der Monarchien – Saudi-Arabiens Kampf um den Erhalt der sunnitisch-royalen Vormachtstellung im Nahen Osten. [The Club of Monarchies. Saudi Arabia’s Fight for Sunni-Royal Hegemony in the Middle East] Alsharq Blog, (Aug. 22, 2015).

Omans ungewisse Zukunft – dem Sultanat droht eine Nachfolgekrise. [Oman’s Uncertain Future - Is the Sultanate Threatened by a Succession Crisis?] Alsharq Blog, (Nov. 11, 2014).

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Work in Progress

The Dictators' Club: How Regional Organizations Sustain Authoritarian Rule. Book Manuscript under contract with Oxford University Press. 

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In The Dictators’ Club, I analyze under what conditions and how membership in ROs helps autocratic regimes secure their hold on power. Autocratic incumbent regimes, I argue, sort into Dictator Clubs that help to successfully defend against domestic and international challenges during moments of political instability, thereby reinforcing autocratic rule across the globe. This happens via distinct causal chains. ROs redistribute resources towards authoritarian elites that raise the cost of challenging behavior for the opposition, ROs regulate appropriate behavior amongst fellow members to prevent regional interference on the side of dissenting actors, and ROs protect regimes in case of international pressure and thereby lower the cost of employing repressive tactics. Combining statistical survival analysis and case-based evidence from the Middle East, (Eur)Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, the book shows that ROs have had a helping hand in defending autocratic regimes from pro-democratic protestors, in co-opting political elites, in legitimizing flawed elections, and in shielding against the fallout from international sanctions. 

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Weathering the Storm? The Third Wave of Autocratization and International Organizations (with Thomas Sommerer). 

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In this project, we analyse the international behavior of states experiencing democratic backsliding. These states face a double dilemma: they are often dependent on membership in multilateral organizations such as the EU or the WTO, and cannot leave these organizations without consequences. At the same time, they fear the negative impact of sanctions from these organizations in response to their democratic setbacks. The planned project explores how states like Hungary and Poland try to resolve these conflicting objectives in various policy areas (migration, human rights, climate).

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Hollow Multilateralism (with Daniëlle Flonk). 

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The project examines the role of autocracies as international norm entrepreneurs. We explore how autocracies attempt to influence discourses within international organizations to gain more legitimacy for autocratic practices and thereby undermine liberal values. We focus on dynamics in two policy areas: the regulation of the internet as a new dynamic policy field and the international human rights regime, with particular attention to minority rights protection as a well-established policy field using case studies, machine learning, and document analysis. 

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Autocracies as International Lawmakers (with Nina Reiners). 

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The joint research project is situated at the intersection of international relations and international law. Building on the widespread concern about the development of "authoritarian international law" expressed by prominent international legal scholars, our collaborative research examines the behavior of autocracies within the United Nations (UN). To do so, we have created a data and text corpus to investigate when and on which topics autocracies submit resolutions in the Sixth Committee (Legal Committee) of the UN, which resolutions they support as sponsors, and which resolutions they block.

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Community Norms and Crisis: Regional Organizations during the Covid-19 Crisis (with Laura von Allwörden). 

In this paper, we explore how norms of community influenced decision-making of regional organizations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Focusing on the Council of Europe and the Organization of Islamic Conference we use process-tracing and interviews to show that regional organizations are particularly well-suited for rapid crisis response because their bureaucracies want to provide for their community. 

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Governance abhors a vacuum: The afterlives of major international organizations (with Hylke Dijkstra & Tim Heinkelmann-Wild), R&R British Journal of Politics and International Relations.

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In this paper, we provide data on the afterlives of 21 major international organizations that have formally been dissolved, but whose assets and functions formally or informally lived on in other organizations. 

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Critical, co-opted or coerced? Union Voting Behaviour in the International Labor Association (with Faradj Koliev)

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In this paper, we explore to what extent regime type affects the ability of unions to remain critical actors vis-a-vis their governments and employer representatives in the ILO by focusing on their voting behaviour in the international labor conference and the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations. 

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