Research Summary
My research centers on a core question: how do marginalized groups develop strong collective action capacity in the face of growing threats from sophisticated disinformation and the technologization of democracy, which upends societal and democratic norms? Breakthrough technologies and resources are increasingly mobilized by technocratic and chauvinist governments, often supported by non-democratic tech companies, while the general public adapts more slowly to these changes. To effectively respond to my core research question, I investigate online grassroots mobilization, social media disinformation, and the critical data infrastructure.
Combining my training in comparative politics and econometrics, as well as my interests in digital activism, social media disinformation, political institutions, and digital infrastructure, my scholarship examines both perennial questions related to how disinformation campaigns have differential impact on people with ideological asymmetries and new challenges surfacing in the transformation of societal and democratic norms. I have worked on projects that explore democratic backsliding in young democracies, the potential and challenges of the digital infrastructure for grassroots mobilization, and media disinformation campaigns spearheaded by transnational actors. My research incorporates both quasi-experimental designs (DiD, IV) and predictive modeling tools (SVM, Bert, Regression, Random Forest), depending on the research question and the nature of the data. Furthermore, my original research draws on the fields of political sociology, political behavior, and historical institutionalism. Thus, my scholarship departs from most research in political science, which typically approaches the study of social mobilization through one of three lenses: institutions, political opportunity structures, or social cleavages. In the context of the growing influence of non-state actors, tech companies, and democratic backsliding, I believe that an interdisciplinary approach is imperative to understand and mitigate the challenges that democratic regimes face.
Dissertation Project
In my dissertation, Using Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing to Understand the Partisan Mobilization Capacity of Ethnic Groups, I examine how competing interests across secondary identity dimensions shape the institutionalization of ethnic group grievances. Specifically, I argue that these competing interests undercut the capacity of ethnic groups to particize through two key mechanisms: intragroup cohesiveness and distinctiveness. Drawing on theories of political sociology and social identity, I approach the question of ethnic group particization in two stages. At the meso level, I employ computational social-science methods to measure intragroup cohesiveness by treating text as data and mapping online discussions across different dimensions of ethnic identity. For this analysis, I developed an original machine learning pipeline to process large text corpora and identify indicators of collective mobilization along ethnic lines. At the macro level, I analyze a cross-national dataset of 21 post-communist countries to examine how intragroup cohesiveness and distinctiveness influence the capacity for particization. I find that these two mechanisms are crucial for understanding the capacity of ethnic minorities to form parties that secure seats in national legislatures.
My dissertation contributes to the existing studies of social cleavages by combining insights from political sociology and social psychology to examine the likelihood of ethnic party formation. Hence, the most important contribution of this project is going beyond understanding how social cleavages impact ethnic political behavior. The existing literature explores question related to my dissertation topic, but none of the previous scholarship directly explore how intragroup dynamics are associated with ethnic party formation.
Second, it contributes to a more critical understanding of data infrastructure and questions the robustness of claims about the capacity of breakthrough technologies to enhance democratic participation. My dissertation research shores up the evidence for the longstanding concerns about the ethics of oversimplification and classification of social identities; the arbitrary categorization of social groups with rigid boundaries as the basis for machine learning tools, and the underlying illusion that data analysis is an autonomous, bias-free process, further increases the already unequal social structure instead of alleviating it.
This project also contributes to the discussion on malign foreign influence and stirring up social dissent through provocative, deliberately targeted misinformation. The findings of Chapter 3 demonstrate that misinformation can evade public opinion and disrupt government-society discourse to the detriment of state capacity, often spread by out-of-state actors. Breakthrough technologies have increased the scale and magnitude of malign actors to meddle in democratic processes.
Ongoing and Future Research Projects
In addition to my dissertation research, I have been working on multi-year research projects alongside my dissertation supervisor, Dr. Erik Herron. In a paper that appeared in Europe-Asia Studies in May 2025, Dr. Herron and I examine how crisis-related accommodations influenced electoral processes and ultimately, the election outcomes in the Country of Georgia. For this analysis, we collected original panel data on elections between 2008 and 2020, which we geolocated to track changes and identify how the performance of the ruling party changed over time across 3,000 polling stations in 80 electoral districts of Georgia. We utilized the collected data to conduct geospatial neighborhood analysis, difference-of-means tests, and regression models for a comparative analysis of voter behavior across special and standard polling stations.
In another project with Dr. Herron and Ralph Clem, we investigated the role of ideological asymmetries in mediating the impact of disinformation. In this study, we examined how exposure to disinformation affected the beliefs of conservative party supporters differently from those of supporters of the progressive party. Using survey data and inferential statistics, we found that conservatives, more than progressives, are more likely to fall prey to the disinformation spread by transnational actors, such as the Russian Federation. This analysis reveals that disinformation campaigns exploit divisive issues related to immigration, healthcare, international trade, and military partnerships to polarize societies, undermine social trust, and degrade the quality of public discourse.
Moving forward, I am passionate about investigating how emerging technologies undermine the capacity of marginalized groups to mobilize collectively. Artificial Intelligence (AI) developers create, implement, and sell their breakthrough technologies to authoritarian state actors and giant tech companies, which further enhances their capacity to overwhelm audiences with disinformation, exploitative digital advertising, and surveillance. Currently, social scientists, communications specialists, and AI developers work in an uncoordinated fashion that limits access to and utilization of modern technology against anti-democratic forces. AI research and tools develop quickly and unsystematically, which makes it challenging for social scientists to fully tap into the capacity of modern technology for the social good; the future of efficient and strategic work lies in cross-disciplinary collaboration among political sociologists, communications specialists, and information technology professionals to provide a blueprint for curating innovative solutions to emerging societal challenges.
I am committed to pursuing research that charts new pathways for building democratic resilience, enhancing human security, and fostering coalitions between grassroots and grasstops activists to counter democratic backsliding.
My most recent publication (April 2025) with my dissertation supervisor, the Eberly Family Distinguished Professor of political science Erik Herron, explores the challenges associated with the management of elections in the face of crisis and security threats in the Republic of Georgia. This paper contributes to the growing literature on the study of elections that addresses how - and where - citizens cast their ballots. Natural and anthropogenic disasters, conflict, and terrorism create logistical and security challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic elevated these concerns as densely packed polling places were considered a potential vector for transmission. We explore how Georgia addressed the risks presented by the pandemic in the conduct of its elections. Specifically, we analyze how polling place location decisions were managed, and examine the consequences – how outcomes in polling places created for quarantined voters differ from those in standard polling places.
Please visit the Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy at the link below to read the full manuscript: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/elj.2024.0016
Russian Anti-Western Disinformation, Media Consumption and Public Opinion
in Georgia
In this project, with Erik S. Herron and Ralph S. Clem, we examine how Russian-aligned disinformation influences public opinion to further its geopolitical goals, particularly in the Republic of Georgia. Using data from the public opinion survey from 2019, we examine how three specific anti-Western conspiracy theories were amplified by media outlets associated with Russia or with Georgian outlets that aired material more sympathetic to Russian foreign-policy preferences. We found that respondents who trusted Georgian media with a pro-Russian orientation and/or who were exposed to Russian television were more likely to accept conspiracy theories aligned with Russia's geopolitical interests, suggesting that Russian disinformation efforts might be moderately successful in persuading some Georgian citizens.
Full article is available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09668136.2023.2220997
Works in Progress
"What Drives Successful Political Mobilization? A Cross-National Analysis of Marginalized Groups in the Digital Era”
“Polarization and Gridlocked Justice: How Political Divisions Weaken Anti-Inequality Legislation in the United States”
“Exploring the Impact of Income Inequality on Public Polarization: The Case Study of Georgia”
“Who Gets Attention? Agenda Diversity During Crisis and Partisan Polarization”