Research
My research explores the role of Armed Forces in shaping societal dynamics, institutions, and political outcomes. Military institutions are among the most powerful and consequential actors in any society, not only because they wield the means of organized violence, but also because their structure, functions, and relationship with civilian authorities influence everything from state capacity and governance to economic development and social norms. By examining how militaries are organized, how they interact with civilian populations, and how they participate in political and economic life, my work seeks to understand the broader implications of military power beyond the battlefield.
I have two book projects that explore the role of the Armed Forces in economic life of societies. I also have multiple articles that study the effects of military economic participation on political outcomes.
Book Projects
My first book project examines the phenomenon of military involvement in the economy in the form of management and ownership of profit-making economic enterprises and studies its consequences for politics. My project offers an original cross-national data on the emergence and level of military involvement in the economy from 1950 to 2025.
Military involvement in the economy is a common phenomena yet efforts to systematically analyze the causes and effects of such involvements have remained minimal. My book project breaks new ground on this very real phenomenon, asking why and how militaries get involved in the economy and what implications such involvements have for various political outcomes.
My second book project (coauthored with Katja Kleinberg) examines how economic crises affect the role that militaries play in national economies. We explore how, in times of economic distress, governments increasingly rely on the armed forces to support economic recovery efforts—whether through managing state-owned enterprises, contributing to infrastructure development, or providing essential public services.
Other Research
My ongoing projects cover issues regarding institutional changes to the security sectors (military and police institutions); UN peacekeeping missions and civil-military relations in post-conflict societies; the impact of peacekeeping experiences on security forces personnel’s attitudes towards the use of violence; and security forces violence against civilians.
As a research fellow at the Gender and the Security Sector Lab at Cornell University, I work on ELSIE Initiative, in cooperation with DCAF-Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, a project that aims to increase the meaningful participation of uniformed women (police, military, gendarmerie) in UN peace operations and to help overcome barriers women face pre and post-deployment. I am the lead author of one of the ongoing projects of the Gender and the Security Sector Lab and coauthor on other projects. The projects aim to understand the effect of socialization on security forces’ attitudes toward the use of violence as well as exploring the institutional differences (police vs military institutions) in explaining such attitudes. I have also contributed to the DCAF Policy Briefs that address salient issue areas in the MOWIP assessments.