Dissertation
Why does an autocrat financially repress his closest business allies during an economic crisis? And why does the business elite rarely defect in the face of repression?
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On the one hand, the financial extortion of the wealthy businesspeople may provide a quick windfall for the regime to survive through a prolonged fiscal crisis. Indeed, the financial shakedown of businesses during economic downturns is quite common across different types of autocratic regimes. However, it is also risky: autocrats may damage their reputation in the international markets with coercive acts like expropriations. Violent repression of political insiders may also trigger collective elite dissent against the regime. Endowed with structural and disruptive power, the business elite may defect from the regime by mobilizing protests and funding the opposition. And yet, despite these inherent risks, dictators choose to financially extort or purge their business allies during economic crises. One might expect dictator’s business allies to defect from the regime in the face of financial repression. However, on average, they do not. The available data suggest that business opposition to autocratic regimes is a rare event. Why?
In my dissertation, I argue that autocrats can financially coerce their business allies during sovereign debt crises with little political cost. They do so by relying on less intensive coercive tactics like tax audits. The co-opted business elite also presents a politically expedient target for repression. First, they can be incorporated into the support coalition in exchange for material benefits without institutional power-sharing concessions. That is why they are relatively easy targets for coercion and less likely to defect from the regime during major crises. Second, due to cronyism and corruption, they lack public support, and the dictator can easily mobilize public opinion to justify their repression and frame it as a crackdown on corruption. In other words, co-optation is a poisonous pill for businesses. The politically connected business elite become punching bags for the dictator during major crises without a credible threat of defection. Once co-opted, the cards get stacked against them, despite their structural power.
Academic publications
(2025) Autocrats and their business allies: The informal politics of defection and co-optation. Government and Opposition (accepted for publication). Why do business allies (not) defect from authoritarian regimes? An emerging scholarship shows that connected businesses face high political risk, and the autocrat can shake down his business allies during economic crises. And yet, despite their disruptive power, the business elite rarely switches to opposition. I argue that this unexpected loyalty does not always stem from credible power-sharing. The more material quid pro quo the business elite engages with the dictator, the less they can credibly threaten him with defection. I present a bargaining game between the dictator and his business allies and test it using a country- year-level dataset of 76 countries for 1992-2019. The results indicate that higher degrees of patrimonial co-optation lower the risk of business opposition. This effect is partly mediated through the government’s control over the media landscape. These findings suggest that even informal, non-institutional tools of co-optation can effectively deter defection.
(2025) Can capitalism save democracy? Journal of Democracy 36(3): 5-15 (with Lucan Way and Steven Levitsky). While capitalism today is widely seen as a threat to democracy, the free market plays a central role in fostering pluralism. A strong and autonomous private sector is critical to the creation of a robust opposition and an independent civil society that are central to democratic resilience. At the same time, even rich and powerful private sectors in high-income countries may be vulnerable to government pressure with regulatory coercion—a fact that makes these countries potentially susceptible to democratic backsliding. Indeed, state capture of business—to a greater degree than business capture of the state— represents the most direct threat to democratic survival.
(2024) Out of sight, out of mind: The impact of lockdown measures on sentiment towards refugees. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 21(2): 166-75 (with Amir Abdul Reda and Amine Aboussalah). How did COVID-19 related movement restrictions impact sentiment toward refugees? Existing theories offer conflicting answers. On the one hand, contact theories suggest that movement restrictions might reduce casual interactions with refugees, leading to less negative sentiments. On the other hand, integrated threat theories suggest refugees may be perceived as a security threat and blamed for these movement restrictions in the first place. To gauge the effect of movement restrictions, we investigate the effect of physical isolation on sentiments toward refugees in Turkey by using a novel dataset. We use Google Mobility Reports’ measurements of movement and our measures of sentiments toward refugees using refugee-related tweets from Turkey. Statistical analysis shows that xenophobic sentiment generally decreased during the pandemic. Our study shows that different types of reduced mobility correlate with increased sympathy toward refugees: the more people stay at home, the more positive sentiments toward refugees they exhibit on Twitter. We conclude by proposing two possible causal mechanisms for these findings. The findings suggest that the absence of casual contact with refugees may yield less negative sentiment, and/or that a rally around the flag mechanism yields unprecedented levels of social solidarity in response to the pandemic.
(2024) Mobilizing the masses: Measuring resource mobilization on Twitter. Sociological Methods & Research 53(1): 153-92 (with Amir Abdul Reda and Mohamed Abdalla). 🎤 APSA 2019 (DC) How can we measure the resource mobilization (RM) efforts of social movements on Twitter? In this article, we create the first-ever measure of social movements’ RM efforts on a social media platform. To this aim, we create a four-conditional lexicon that can parse through tweets and identify those concerned with RM. We also create a simple RM score that can be plotted in a time series format to track the RM efforts of social movements in real-time. We use our tools with millions of tweets from the United States streamed between November 28, 2018, and February 11, 2019, to demonstrate how our measure can help us estimate the saliency and persistency of social movements’ RM efforts. We find that our measure captures RM by successfully cross-checking the variation of this score against protest events in the United States during the same time frame. Finally, we illustrate the descriptive and qualitative utility of our tools for understanding social movements by running conventional topic modeling algorithms on the tweets that were used to compute the RM score and point at specific avenues for theory building and testing.
(2022) Containing ethnic conflict: Repression, cooptation, and identity politics. Comparative Politics 54(4): 765–86 (with Ceren Belge). 🎤 ISA 2019 (Toronto) 📂 replication
Why do states target some civilians with collective punishment while coopting others with material goods during an ethnic civil war? This article examines how the Turkish government calibrated its repression and cooptation policies towards the Kurdish population during the counterinsurgency of the 1990s. In contrast to the situational conflict dynamics emphasized by the civil war literature, we explain the distribution of cooptation and repression with the state's identity policy: government policies were more punitive in areas that displayed strong Kurdish linguistic/political identity, or high tribal concentration, while they were more cooptative where the government had fostered a Sunni-Muslim Kurdish identity. The study is based on a novel dataset that includes information about displacement, tribal concentration, and violent events from archival sources.
Under review
(2024) Cross-partisan disaster relief aid as an opposition depolarization tactic under
authoritarianism (with Michael Donnelly). 🎤 APSA 2022 (Montreal), CEU DRD Annual Workshop 2024 (Budapest) 🧾 Funded by EGAP and POMEPS Can opposition parties help depolarize with cross-partisan post-disaster solidarity under authoritarian regimes? The increasingly frequent climate disasters like wildfires and floods may exacerbate polarization through a partisan distribution of resources, and autocrats may take advantage of these disasters to consolidate their support base and discredit the opposition. In response, opposition parties may deploy cross-partisan disaster relief aid as a depolarization strategy. We test the effectiveness of such relief aid by Turkey’s main opposition, using a well-powered in-person survey experiment. Turkey, an electoral autocracy with intense polarization, government propaganda, and ethnic conflict, presents a hard test case. Our findings reveal that costly public acts may increase political tolerance toward the opposition, despite government propaganda. However, it backfires in terms of affective polarization, leading to perceptions of hypocrisy not just among pro-government voters but also among ethnic minorities in opposition. These results suggest that conventional depolarization tools may have unintended and divergent consequences, with significant implications for opposition strategies against autocrats.
(2024) Why citizens endorse authoritarian financial repression? 🎤 APSA 2023 (LA) 🧾 IHS Hayek Fund Why do citizens endorse financial repression in autocracies? An autocrat may financially squeeze the business community, especially during economic downturns. However, such extraordinary taxation may lack broad public support and trigger backlash. I designed novel visual conjoints using AI-generated LinkedIn profiles of businesspeople and measured public support for their repression in Turkey, varying cues of co-optation, and firm’s characteristics. The results indicate that people are more likely to condone the extra-taxation of co-opted business elite perceived as rent seekers responsible for the crisis, suggesting that an autocrat’s business allies may be politically expedient targets. I then discuss the findings’ external validity with illustrative cases from different types of autocratic regimes. This article contributes to growing scholarships on public support for taxing the rich, authoritarian repression, and the cost of political-connectedness.
(2024) The cost of co-optation: Tax audit as authoritarian financial repression. Why do autocrats financially repress some businesses during debt crises? While the financial extortion of businesses may return quick rents during fiscal downturns, such coercion in the middle of a crisis may also backfire. Therefore, the regime would strategically calibrate the target and the tool of coercion. I argue that autocrats’ business allies present a politically expedient target during such crises. To that aim, autocrats deploy tax audits against these companies as a technical tool of financial repression. I test these ideas using firm-level data from over 32000 companies in 40 electoral autocracies. The findings show that co-opted firms that have secured a public contract or import permits are more likely and more frequently to be inspected by the tax authorities, especially during debt crises. The results have significant implications for understanding the cost of political-connectedness under autocratic regimes.
Working papers
(2025) Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe, and support for authoritarianism. 🎤 MPSA 2025 (Chicago), ECPR Joint Workshop 2025 (Prag), SISP Workshop 2025 (Milan)
How does international assistance impact public attitudes towards donors in the recipient country when tied to strategic interests? European leaders highlight more and more the strategic and transactional nature of international assistance. Yet, we still do not know much about how such shifts in framing of international assistance are perceived by the recipient public, especially in contexts with prevalent anti-Western attitudes and propaganda that dismisses aid as hypocritical and disingenuous. I conducted an online survey experiment in Turkey to assess the attitudinal and quasi-behavioral effects of different types of international assistance post-disaster -- conditional, unconditional, and strategic -- and whether they help sway public attitudes in the face of authoritarian propaganda. Contrary to my expectations, strategic aid decreased trust in the government as a defender of national interest among conservative, nationalist, and Eurosceptic regime supporters, and also increased trust in European organizations. It did so partly by mitigating conspiracism and evoking positive emotions among pro-government voters whose views are hard to change. However, this comes at a cost: increased trade skepticism and less engagement with foreign media outlets among regime opponents. The findings have significant implications for international assistance strategies for increasing European soft power and their unintended consequences.
(2025) Sultanist and militarist soft propaganda, and support for security operations (with Michael Donnelly). 🎤 VWAR Workshop 2024, PEDD 2025 (Muenster), PSA 2025 (Birmingham)
How does autocratic soft propaganda impact support for security operations at home and abroad? Autocratic regimes allocate significant resources for TV series and movies to manufacture public support and boost nationalism. Despite the growing scholarship, we still do not know enough to what extent different types of soft propaganda effectively generate support for military operations. To that aim, we conducted a pre-registered in-person experiment with a representative sample of the Turkish population to measure the varying effects of government-funded militarist and neo-Ottomanist TV series on support for cross-border military operations and domestic police operations. The findings suggest that we should take fiction seriously – neo-Ottomanist TV series significantly increase support for scaling up security operations abroad among religious pro-regime voters, while militarist scripts drive similar attitudes with nationalists. Both scripts fuel anti-Israel sentiments among government supporters. The results show that autocrats cater soft propaganda to different ideological groups within their support base and to varying degrees of effectiveness.
(2025) Trade-offs with authoritarian responsiveness and the effectiveness of regime propaganda (with Armin von Schiller). 🎤 EPSA 2025 (Madrid), WZB-MoPED Workshop 2025 (Berlin)
How do autocrats ensure loyalty of their support groups through thick and thin? Autocratic regimes are more resilient to economic and political crises than initially assumed. Citizens sometimes offer support to dictators regardless of circumstances. We conducted a well-powered online survey experiment (N=4600) in Turkey and measured attitudes and quasi-behavioral outcomes regarding different types of normative support for authoritarianism following treatments related to CIMER -- an electronic portal that allows citizens to submit petitions/complaints, drop messages for the president, and suggest policies and programs. We hypothesize that such participatory institutions are more than just devices of social delivery; instead, they also serve as political technologies that make people invested in the regime by increasing their trust in autocratic institutions and driving normative support. But it comes at a cost for the regime: perceived popularity of the leader declines in the eyes of their support group. The findings contribute to our understanding of instrumental and diffuse support for regime types, and the trade-offs with autocratic propaganda.
(2025) Introducing the PROSEC Dataset v1.0 (with Seva Gunitsky and Sahib Jafarov). The prosecution of former leaders by their own states has become a surprisingly common democratic practice. Despite its prevalence, the scant literature on the subject has remained entirely qualitative and anecdotal. This research note presents the first comprehensive dataset of democratic leader prosecutions since 1989. We find that over a quarter of all democratic leaders elected since that period have been prosecuted by their own states, many more than once. Democracies with high levels of political polarization and judicial independence are more likely to initiate prosecutions, though high polarization is also associated with fewer repeated prosecutions. Overall, the results challenge the notion that prosecuting former leaders is a sign of democratic corruption or poor governance.
(2025) Resource concentration and autocratic resilience (with Lucan Way and Steven Levitsky). 🎤 APSA 2025 (Vancouver) How does resource concentration impact regime survival? On the one hand, the concentration of resources in government hands may allow dictators to weaken independent economic actors, bind large numbers to the state through the provision of attractive public employment, and facilitate efforts to impoverish, coopt, or divide organized opposition. On the other hand, high-level state involvement in the economy may render autocrats liable for a country’s economic woes and aggravate the economic loss of the incumbent elite during economic downturns, leading to higher rates of defection. To test these ideas, we created an original index of resource concentration that includes a variety of measures for the relative size of the government/private sector, state’s coercive control over the economy, and poverty and underdevelopment with a country-year-level dataset from 1970-2023. We show that higher levels of statist resource concentration significantly boost regime survival, controlled for the level of institutionalization. The findings have significant implications for understanding structural/political economy factors behind regime durability.
Ongoing research
(2024-26) The sources of democratic resilience in an age of backsliding (SSHRC-funded project run by Lucan Way and Steve Levitsky)
You may find further details on the argument here.
File drawer
(2023) The determinants of defection in civil wars: Survey experiments with rebel groups in Myanmar (with POSTCOR Lab).
We will conduct list and conjoint experiments through online surveys with active armed group members in Myanmar and the Philippines to better understand rebel retention. We also hope to establish some priors for future experimental research with active rebel group members. To what extent do they strategically misreport? Are they less attentive compared to the general population? Do they differ in terms of their values/attitudes, including trust in institutions, life satisfaction, and attitudes toward democracy?
(2022) Divided at home, divided abroad? Affective polarization and political tolerance among migrants (with Selin Kepenek).
How does polarization at home shape social network formation and political tolerance among immigrants? The existing scholarship suggests that networks with co-nationals in the country of destination can potentially provide a ‘haven’ for newcomers and facilitate their search for jobs, accommodation, and social connections. However, the impact of polarization in the home country on these everyday interactions between immigrants is understudied. We conducted two survey experiments in Turkey using a novel visual treatment of fake Facebook profiles, and replicated the designs in Canada. Our results indicate that home country polarization between regime supporters and opponents travels abroad. Under high polarization in the home country, anti-government immigrants are significantly less likely to help and socially engage with government-supporting co-nationals and tolerate political activities in the host country. However, despite high political polarization at home between anti-government groups, this divisiveness disappears abroad, as they are as likely to support, politically tolerate, and socially engage with each other. The findings offer insight into the mechanisms through which polarization at home can diffuse abroad and how contextual factors can mitigate affective polarization.