I am a PhD Candidate in the Political Science Department at Emory University. My research spans comparative politics, democratization, political parties, authoritarian regimes, Russia, and the former Soviet Union. I am currently working on a dissertation that examines the emergence of dominant parties in non-democracies. Other ongoing research examines elite defections from hegemonic parties, opposition coordination, endogenous decentralization, accountability in new democracies, and various topics in Russian politics