How do political connections shape the propensity of firms to make investments in weakly institutionalized settings? Traditionally, absent ways to hold the state accountable, firms should withhold investment for fear of predation. An emerging body of work on the political economy of investment...

How and when do employers and governments cooperate to overcome skill shortages? Existing literature in the VOC tradition distinguishes between coordinated market and liberal market economy approaches. So far, however, little research has addressed this problem in the context of emerging market...

What are the determinants of individual-level trust in Internet-based voting in non-democracies? Modern digital and electronic transformations of the electoral process offer citizens new forms of voting, however it is not clear which citizens are prepared to trust these innovations. Existing...

When are citizens willing to give up civil rights to enable governments to deal with large-scale emergencies in non-democracies? Emergency responses are one of the most fundamental public services governments provide. Digital transformations in government services both create new possibilities...

How does political competition shape the way that firms pursue legislative change? A rich political economy literature describes various ways in which firms influence the design and enforcement of laws, rules and regulations germane to their business activities. Although helpful, this literature...

The recent uprisings in the Middle East have cast doubt on the degree to which existing theories of autocracy can correctly identify which groups threaten the autocrats rule at any given time. As a result, these theories are unable to predict fundamental upheavals in established autocracies. Who...

Who supports social policy in settings where institutions are weak? Existing work on social policy preferences focuses on the developed world, where governments can credibly commit to policy, tax evasion is constrained, and governments are accountable. In this paper, I relax these assumptions. I...

When does business support the expansion of social policy in the developing world? Existing work on managers preferences has tended to concentrate on the developed world, where governments can credibly commit to policy, tax evasion is constrained, and mechanisms exist to hold the bureaucracy...