I work on judicial and coalition politics in parliamentary democracies. My research focuses on political institutions in comparative perspective, and spans three programs.

The first, on judicial and constitutional politics, examines courts as strategic actors within broader political systems and the political conditions that sustain constitutional government.

With Lanny Martin, I have spent much of the past two decades studying how coalition governments work. Our work examines how legislative institutions structure mutual oversight among coalition partners, how those institutions shape the relative influence of coalition members on policy outcomes, and how the anticipation of voter reactions shapes the strategic choices of party leaders.

A third, more recent line of work examines authoritarian politics and its legacies: the conditions under which democratic institutions erode, and the long shadow cast by authoritarian regimes on the politics that follow.