Presidentialism's Perils: The Institutional Origins of Democratic Breakdown
Why constitutions that separate executive from legislative power systematically produce democratic instability
The Veto Player Framework: Predicting When Reform Becomes Impossible
A structural theory explaining why some governments adapt while others remain trapped in permanent gridlock.
Constitutional Courts as Political Actors: The Judicialization of Politics
How constitutional courts transformed from legal referees into decisive policy arbiters reshaping democratic governance
Hybrid Regimes: The New Modal Form of Government
Most governments today are neither democracies nor autocracies—they are something analytically distinct that demands its own theoretical framework.
Colonial Legacies: How Imperial Rule Shapes Post-Independence Institutions
Why the administrative choices of nineteenth-century empires still shape twenty-first-century governance outcomes.
Bureaucratic Quality Determinants: Building State Capacity
Why some states build capable bureaucracies while others remain trapped in patronage and dysfunction
The EU as Institutional Experiment: Supranational Governance Without Statehood
Examining how the EU challenges sovereignty, democracy, and integration theory—revealing what supranational governance can and cannot achieve.
Federalism's Double Edge: When Power-Sharing Preserves and When It Destroys
Why identical federal blueprints produce Swiss stability and Yugoslav dissolution—an institutional design framework for navigating territorial diversity.
Party System Institutionalization: Why Some Democracies Develop Stable Competition
Why some democracies achieve stable partisan competition while others cycle through perpetual electoral chaos—the mechanisms behind party system consolidation
Constitutional Design for Divided Societies: The Consociational Alternative
How constitutional architects choose between accommodating divisions and engineering incentives to transcend them in fragmented societies.
Parliamentary Varieties: Why Westminster Differs From Consensus Democracy
How constitutional architects choose between decisive majorities and inclusive coalitions—and why these choices cascade through entire governance systems.
Political Development Sequences: Does Order of Reform Matter?
Why the order of building state capacity, rule of law, and electoral competition shapes whether democracies thrive or fracture.
Why Democracies Differ: The Hidden Logic of Electoral System Design
Discover why identical voter preferences produce different governments—and what this reveals about democracy's inescapable design dilemmas.
Decentralization Outcomes: When Local Government Improves Governance
Understanding why decentralization transforms governance in some contexts while enabling local capture in others requires examining accountability, capacity, and competition.