Publications
Published
How Students and the Public Define Terrorism, and How Education Affects Those Definitions
How do students and the public define terrorism, and what impact does education have on those definitions? We gathered evidence from an extensive series of experimental and observational surveys involving students in 31 terrorism and non-terrorism related courses at 12 universities, as well as online survey experiments of the general public. Students and the public initially define terrorism as being committed by non-state actors and targeting civilians at a far lower rate than do academics and governments, although those percentages increase after students and the public take courses and watch video lectures on terrorism. Although other studies identify the religion of the perpetrator (especially Islam) as perhaps the most significant element in implicit, revealed definitions of terrorism, almost no students or members of the public mentioned religion or Islam in any form in their explicit, stated definitions. Finally, latent variable analysis reveals that the more that students and the public learn about terrorism, the more they define it as a rational act. Our findings reveal how the uninformed public's lack of specificity on perpetrators and victims enables the idea that "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter," but also how education can change those definitions and, perhaps, their application.
Mapping Political Violence in Turkey: When Terrorism and Civil War Converge
This study introduces the Political Violence in Türkiye Event Dataset (POLVITED), a resource designed to provide a more comprehensive estimation of political violence in Türkiye. I employ the Matching Event Data by Location, Time, and Type (MELTT) methodology to integrate data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) and the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP-GED). The findings reveal that UCDP-GED captures 60% of political violence incidents in Türkiye, GTD records 40%, and only 15% of incidents are documented in both datasets. By eliminating duplicate records and mitigating reporting bias, POLVITED offers a more comprehensive representation of political violence in Turkey. Additionally, a comparison with official reports demonstrates that while reporting bias cannot be entirely eradicated, data integration significantly enhances dataset coverage and reliability.
Over Proofed: Military Purges, Command Structure, and Foreign Military Intervention in Authoritarian Regimes
Why do some authoritarian leaders who have systematically weakened their own militaries through purges still deploy those militaries abroad? This article argues that the relationship between coup-proofing and foreign military intervention is nonlinear, but in a form that prior theory has not specified: purging military officers increases the probability of foreign intervention up to a moderate threshold, then decreases it. Using the Military Purges in Dictatorships (MPD) dataset (Sudduth, 2021) with the International Military Intervention (IMI) dataset (Pickering & Kisangani, 2009; Pearson & Baumann, 1993) across 114 autocracies from 1965 to 2005, we show that officer purges predicts combat interventions abroad in a curvilinear pattern. Crucially, this effect is driven almost entirely by purges of middle-rank officers not top commanders or junior soldiers. Purging 2-3 generals or colonels in a rolling three-year window is associated with a peak probability of foreign combat deployment; purging more than that predicts declining engagement.
Published Essays
From Conflict to Consensus: Power-Sharing and the Path to Democracy
Review of Governing After War: Rebel Victories and Post-War Statebuilding