• ForthcomingEn prensa

  Human Rights Consolidation or Fragmentation? A Network Analysis of Resolution Sponsorship in the UN Human Rights Council

  withcon Jared Edgerton andy Gino Pauselli · Network Science

  The international human rights regime is neither universally cohesive nor universally fragmented, yet existing scholarship treats it as one or the other. This article addresses that gap by analyzing state sponsorship of resolutions proposed at the United Nations Human Rights Council (2006-2024). We develop a network-based measurement approach that enables systematic, within-issue comparison of fragmentation across the regime's diverse topic areas. Through network analysis of expert- and BERT-coded resolutions, we find that fragmentation is issue-dependent, with topics like Israel-Palestine exhibiting higher levels of division, while other topics, such as physical integrity, show more consistent collaboration among states. These findings challenge the assumption of a monolithic human rights regime, highlight the analytical value of combining domain knowledge with unsupervised text analysis, and clarify the specific issue domains where coalition-building in multilateral human rights governance is most constrained.

Under reviewEn revisión

• Under reviewEn revisión

  How USAID's Withdrawal Fragmented Global Aid Networks in Conflict-Affected Countries

  withcon Madeline Fleishman, Shahryar Minhas, Alex Bruens, Nuole Chen, Jared F. Edgerton, Jessica Maves Braithwaite, andy Susanna P. Campbell

  In 2025, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cut over 85% of its aid. Not only is this withdrawal likely to cause millions of deaths, it is also fragmenting the global aid ecosystem. Using original data on aid networks in 20 conflict-affected countries, combined with simulations of network disruption and a decomposition analysis, we demonstrate that USAID's withdrawal leads to network fragmentation at more than twice the rate of any comparable donor. This outsized effect stems from the high dependency of aid actors on USAID, across sectors and organizational types. Given the importance of cross-network coordination, USAID's withdrawal is likely to reduce the ability of the global aid network to sustain peace and development in the most fragile contexts.

• Under reviewEn revisión

  Memory Matters: Rethinking Structural Breaks in Conflict Time Series

  withcon Maya A. Dalton

  How do structural breaks in conflict time series arise? Standard practice treats breaks such as coups, uprisings, and crackdowns as exogenous shocks to control away. We argue this assumption fails for the breaks that matter most. We develop a framework distinguishing three mechanisms: exogenous breaks, where timing is independent of conflict history; threshold switches, which are reversible regime activations; and escalation breaks, which are permanent structural transformations triggered by the accumulation of past violence. Simulation shows that standard estimators tend to misdate escalation breaks and misestimate post-break persistence when the true process is accumulation-driven. Applied to Egypt (1997-2025), major violence shifts coincide with periods when accumulated instability made violent ruptures probable, not with identifiable external interventions. The framework applies wherever path-dependent accumulation governs structural transformation, including democratic backsliding, polarization, institutional erosion, and rivalry escalation, and provides researchers a principled diagnostic for selecting among them.

• Under reviewEn revisión

  The Demand for Rebel Rules

  withcon Cyanne E. Loyle

  Given the demands of warfighting, why do rebel groups choose to expend limited resources on governing the civilian population? Early research focused on the structural characteristics and ideological motivations of rebel groups, while more recent studies highlight the role of civilians in conditioning rebel behavior. We argue that civilian discontent with state institutions creates demand for rebel alternatives. Using subnational survey data from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, we test whether perceived judicial corruption and mistrust in state courts predict the establishment of rebel Sharia courts by JNIM. We find strong support for demand-side explanations: areas with higher perceived judicial corruption and lower trust in state courts are significantly more likely to experience rebel court establishment. Critically, civilian affinity with rebel groups does not independently predict rebel governance, suggesting that rebels do not simply establish courts where resistance is minimal but instead respond to specific institutional grievances. This paper contributes to the growing research on political order during conflict by providing the first systematic empirical evidence of the importance of civilian demands and failure of state institutions in driving rebel governance behavior.

• Under reviewEn revisión

  Civil Society and the Local Dynamics of Peacebuilding

  How do local civil society organizations shape the management of land disputes in conflict-affected settings? While scholars emphasize the importance of CSOs in peacebuilding, systematic evidence on their relationship to local dispute outcomes, a key but understudied dimension of peace, remains limited. This article examines how CSO participation relates to whether land disputes are resolved. Using panel data from 241 rural communities in Colombia (2010 to 2016), I find that greater participation in local CSOs is associated with higher rates of dispute resolution. This relationship is consistent with two functions, information bridging to state institutions and direct community-based dispute resolution. Importantly, these patterns do not extend to courts or self-resolution. Overall, the findings suggest that CSO participation strengthens communities' capacity to resolve disputes. This everyday capacity to manage disputes without violence is itself a foundation of lasting peace, one that broad civic participation helps sustain.

• Under reviewEn revisión

  Elections under Contested Authority: Sustained Violence and Political Change in Colombia

  withcon Giancarlo Visconti

  How does prolonged exposure to violent armed groups shape electoral processes in democracies? Armed conflicts from the Philippines to Turkey create contexts where state authority is contested, yet the electoral consequences of sustained coexistence with armed actors remain understudied. We estimate how the violent presence of armed groups during Colombia's civil war shaped electoral participation from 1988-2019. Leveraging administrative electoral data and a dynamic difference-in-differences design, we find that armed group presence increases electoral participation progressively over fifteen years, with increases concentrated among alternatives to the governing party. This shift away from continuity holds even where officeholders lack authority over security forces, consistent with cumulative punishment. These patterns persist despite significant conflict-induced displacement and show no systematic association with electoral fraud, party withdrawal, or ideological alignment with armed actors. Our findings reveal how citizens adapt electoral institutions to express dissatisfaction within compromised contexts: using constrained channels strategically.

DissertationTesis doctoral

• Pre-registeredPrerregistrado

  Preferences for Local Authority in Peacebuilding Project Design

  This study examines how peacebuilding practitioners believe authority should be allocated between international donors and local community organizations in the design of peacebuilding projects. The localization agenda holds that greater local authority is widely endorsed in principle, yet locally led arrangements remain rare in practice. Whether that gap reflects practitioners' actual preferences or the contracting structures they operate within is an open question.

  The study embeds a paired conjoint experiment in a follow-up organizational survey of peacebuilding practitioners in Colombia (NPAC). Each respondent evaluates five pairs of hypothetical project descriptions that vary independently on three governance attributes: project design authority, budget control, and monitoring and evaluation ownership. The survey also includes a list experiment estimating the prevalence of observed armed actor rule enforcement.

FieldworkTrabajo de campo

• 2026

  Colombia

  Dissertation fieldworkTrabajo de campo doctoral

• 2024

  Colombia

  Pre-dissertation fieldworkTrabajo de campo predoctoral

Policy publicationsPublicaciones sobre políticas públicas

• 2025

  Controlling the Corridors in Sudan: Humanitarian Aid and Emergency Response Rooms

  withcon Hatem Zayed andy Susanna Campbell · Research in International Policy Implementation Lab

• 2023

  Discovery of Speech Crimes in Ukraine from Open Sources

  Digital Verification Unit, under the supervision of Dr. Matthew Gillet · Submitted to the UN Commission of InquiryPresentado ante la Comisión de Investigación de la ONU