Erica Dobbs’ research explores the shifting dynamics of citizenship and political membership in a world of mass migration. Her work focuses on two spheres: political representation and social protection. Related scholarship also focuses on immigrant political mobilization into electoral politics.

Emily Ritter’s research centers on the effects of international legal institutions on the strategic relationship between government repression and dissent activities, with particular attention to the methodological implications for causal inference that stem from strategic conflict behavior. Her work includes international human rights institutions, law, and practice; domestic conflict between national governments and groups from the population; international governance and legal institutions; institutional solutions to bargaining and cooperation problems, and political methodology.

Diana Fu’s research examines popular contention, state control, civil society, and authoritarian citizenship, with a focus on contemporary China.

Suryanarayan argues that political elites may weaken bureaucratic capacity in anticipation of future redistribution. One such instance occurred in the Colonial Indian provinces, where incumbent elites hollowed out tax capacity in anticipation of franchise expansion. While studies of intra-elite competition have focused on economic inequality as a key factor in shaping elite motivations, she finds that high-caste elites in the colonial era, who were worried about their status dominance, weakened institutions in order to limit the ability of future elected lower castes to integrate public goods to lower castes. As elite bureaucrats as well as local tax collectors, upper castes enabled tax avoidance and exited the local bureaucratic machinery. Using a historical dataset from 1914-1925 and novel micro-level measures of land tax collection, tax avoidance, and the size of the bureaucracy, she demonstrates that bureaucratic capacity declined after franchise expansion in the districts with higher levels of inter-caste status inequality and where threats of political ascendance of lower castes were greater.

This paper argues that political elites may weaken bureaucratic capacity in anticipation of future redistribution. One such instance occurred in the Colonial Indian provinces, where incumbent elites hollowed out tax capacity in anticipation of franchise expansion. While studies of intra-elite competition have focused on economic inequality as a key factor in shaping elite motivations, this paper finds that high-caste elites in the colonial era, who were worried about their status dominance, weakened institutions in order to limit the ability of future elected lower castes to integrate public goods to lower castes. As elite bureaucrats as well as local tax collectors, upper castes enabled tax avoidance and exited the local bureaucratic machinery. Using a historical dataset from 1914-1925 and novel micro-level measures of land tax collection, tax avoidance, and the size of the bureaucracy, the paper demonstrates that bureaucratic capacity declined after franchise expansion in the districts with higher levels of inter-caste status inequality and where threats of political ascedence of lower castes were greater.