Research

My research examines representation and political behavior in Latin America, specifically how and when citizens engage with democratic political institutions. I employ quantitative, experimental and computational methods in conversation with intensive fieldwork and archival research.

Job Market Paper

Mass Party-Switching From Below: Evidence from Panama

Manuscript in preparation

When do party members switch political parties? We know legislators switch parties strategically to advance their careers, but know far less about the strategic logics that govern mass party-switching. I propose a model in which a citizen’s hazard of changing formal party status is a function of their position in the electoral calendar, their organizational experience, and the competitiveness of their political environment. I test this model using the administrative registry of Panama’s nine major parties, and draw on focus groups with party members and organizers to interpret the strategic reasoning behind the patterns the registry reveals. Switching and withdrawal turn out to be governed by different logics: switching responds to organizational experience and the electoral calendar in ways withdrawal does not, and even the direction of switching — toward or away from the party in power — depends on how experienced a member is. Formal party membership operates as a strategic resource independent of the partisan identity a member expresses, a pattern with direct implications for how membership should be understood in any political system where comparable records exist.

Peer-Reviewed

Framing and News Sharing Behavior: The Use of Confirmation and Refutation Statements in the Election of a Right-Wing Populist Leader

With Natalia Aruguete and Ernesto Calvo · Forthcoming, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Better the Devil You Know Than the Devil You Don’t? Continuity and Change in Panama’s 2024 General Elections

With Lucas Perelló · Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política, 34 (2025)

Under Review

The Electoral Business Cycle of Wikipedia: What Elections Reveal About Partisanship, the Public’s Attention, and the Production of Political Knowledge

With Carolina F. T. Batista, Ernesto Calvo, Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, and Rojin Ziaei · Under review at EPJ Data Science
Joining a Discredited Institution: Legitimacy and the Meanings of Party Membership in Latin America

Under review at Party Politics

Working Papers & Works in Progress

Partisan Identity Threat: Party Membership and Social Identity in Panama

With Marcus Johnson · Manuscript in preparation
Generational Replacement, Partisanship and Party System Deinstitutionalization: Evidence from Panama

With Lucas Perelló · Manuscript in preparation
When Legacies Ripen: Authoritarianism, Elections, and the Sources of Partisan Attachment in the Dominican Republic

With Lucas Perelló · Manuscript in preparation
Who Cares About Bitcoin? Cryptocurrency Adoption, Issue Salience and Social Media Audiences in El Salvador

Manuscript in preparation

Monograph

¿Crisis o malestar?: La representación política y el sistema de partidos ante el surgimiento de las candidaturas por libre postulación

Panamá: Tribunal Electoral (2020)