I am a doctoral student at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. In my work, I seek to answer the question of why citizens support authoritarian actors. Using various research designs and causal inference methods, I focus on former communist Europe and study how authoritarian actors shape attitudes towards autocracy & democracy, political conflicts and identities. This research seeks to shed light on the puzzling issue of authoritarian support. I am on the 2025/2026 Academic Job Market.

Working Papers

1. Political Economy of Military Presence in Autocracies: Evidence from the German Democratic Republic R&R at American Journal of Political Science

2. On Solid Footing: How Authoritarian Legacies Facilitate the Rise of Illiberalism Under Review

3. Land and Freedom: The Political Consequences of Land Reform in East Germany

4. From Peasants to Communists: How Ordinary Citizens Invest in Authoritarian Parties

5. Beyond the Losers: How Transformation Gains Don’t Boost Democratic Support (with Hans Lueders and Eda Keremoglu) Under Review

6. Going Through The Roof: Difference-in-Differences Designs in Contexts of Natural Boundaries (with Joris Frese) Under Review

7. The Price of Incompetence: How Policy Mismanagement Fuels Climate Backlash (with Martín Alberdi)

8. Between Guilt and Victimhood: The Political Effects of WWII Memory (with Anna Clemente and Joe Kendall)

9. Dimensions of Gender Equality: Unpacking Democratic and Communist Socialization Experiences (with Hans Lueders and Eda Keremoğlu)

Work in Progress

1. Legacies of Fascist Cooperation and Support for Russia: Evidence from Slovakia

2. Memory Regimes and Attitudes toward Foreign Conflict (with Anna Clemente and Joe Kendall)

3. Who Remembers What? Scrutinizing Vertical Memory Transmission (with Anna Clemente and Joe Kendall)