Research
Publications
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The Paradox of Imperial Taxation: How Diversity Shaped Fiscal Development in the Ottoman EmpireWorld Politics (Forthcoming).This paper investigates the relationship between diversity and state-building by examining how diversity affects the costs of investing in fiscal capacity. I argue that ethnic and religious diversity make populations less legible to the state, thereby increasing these costs. Higher costs deter the state from investing in fiscal capacity in more diverse areas, hindering fiscal capacity building in these regions. Instead, the state diverts investments to less diverse areas, which are typically populated by the core/dominant groups. As a result, these groups bear a higher tax burden, while minorities do not experience comparable increases. I test these arguments using original data on local-level fiscal revenues in the late Ottoman Empire, along with qualitative and quantitative evidence from archival sources, as well as contemporary cross-national and subnational data.
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When Religion Meets Incumbency: The Limits of Islamist Electoral Advantage (with M. Tahir Kilavuz)Party Politics (2025), 31(6), pp. 1004-1017.Why do religious-based parties in Muslim-majority contexts win when they run in elections as incumbents? Does Islamist advantage make them appealing to voters? The sources of Islamist advantage such as their organizations, services, images, and being a refuge are well-documented. However, the literature primarily focuses on contexts where religious-based parties compete under adverse conditions as opposition actors, rather than as incumbents facing more favorable conditions. Through an innovative conjoint experiment in Turkey using candidate videos, we explore the extent of Islamist advantage arguments. Our findings suggest that the universal Islamist advantage, by which Islamists appeal to broader segments, disappears under Islamist incumbency because Islamists can no longer appeal through those sources of Islamist advantage as incumbents. Instead, Islamists may still win due to two factors: incumbency advantage and a persisting particularistic Islamist advantage, driven by increasing spatial voting. Our findings provide evidence for a frequently proposed, yet unsubstantiated, claim about the extent of Islamist advantage.
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All the Sultan's Men: Regime Type, Insecurity, and the Shuffling of Governors (with Bogdan G. Popescu and Gunes Murat Tezcur)Comparative Political Studies (2024), 57(13), pp. 2087–2117.Why do some political rulers engage in frequent shuffling of their governors while others allow their governors to serve longer? We argue that shuffling of governors reflects the level of a ruler's perception of insecurity. Building on perspectives about situational origins of distrust and paranoid cognition, we argue that democratic leaders, characterized by higher levels of existential security, practice less frequent shuffling of governors compared to authoritarian ones. We also suggest that governors in localities characterized by higher levels of ethnic conflict and poor electoral performance by a ruling government are more likely to be replaced. Utilizing an original dataset of all Ottoman and Turkish governors from 1875 to 2019, our empirical analyses show that governors last longer under more democratic governments, in provinces with lower levels of ethnic diversity conflict, and stronger electoral support for the government.
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Predatory Rulers, Credible Commitment, and Tax Compliance in the Ottoman BalkansJournal of Historical Political Economy (2022), 2(2), pp. 263–297.This paper explores how the wealthy's tax evasion behavior is shaped by the level of rule of law, and its consequences for fiscal capacity building. In contexts with lower respect for the rule of law and weaker property rights, the possibility of rulers' predatory behavior inclines wealth holders to shelter their wealth, decreasing tax compliance. Such wealth sheltering is especially common during wartime when rulers confiscate assets to fund the war. With wealth sheltering, it is unlikely that the rulers will invest in fiscal capacity building since there will be no sufficient assets to make such an investment optimal. Under stronger rule of law and property rights, the constraints on the rulers' predatory behavior provides higher security for wealth holders and makes them less likely to shelter wealth, bringing higher tax compliance. This compliance makes it more likely that rulers can increase fiscal revenues during war and therefore will be more likely to invest in fiscal capacity. Empirically, the paper uses an original dataset of Ottoman waqfs in modern-day Greece and Bulgaria between 1600 and 1912 in addition to annual Ottoman fiscal revenue data. Results indicate that wars increase wealth sheltering under weaker rule of law, while they do not under stronger rule of law. Furthermore, while wars do not increase fiscal revenues under weaker rule of law, they increase fiscal revenues under stronger rule of law. In other words, war does not make the state under weak rule of law, but does make the state under strong rule of law and security of property. The paper, thus, outlines a dilemma for the rulers: In order to be able to increase fiscal revenues and strengthen the state in the long term, they need to tie their own hands and forgo their predatory ability that can provide them revenues in the short term.
Working papers
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Bargaining over State Building in the Shadow of War (with Daniel Goldstein)Under ReviewWe present a formal model that examines how external conflict reshapes the bargaining process over fiscal control between a central state and a peripheral elite. Our findings reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between war-related pressures and state fiscal control. Low-to-moderate war pressure enhances state fiscal control by strengthening the state's bargaining power. However, excessive pressure undermines state control. This outcome is influenced by the degree to which the interests of the state and the elites align. We also identify instances when states fall into a `capacity trap,' where those with low initial fiscal control sacrifice future revenues to finance ongoing conflict. Using historical fiscal revenue data from Europe and case studies of Ancien Régime France and the Ottoman Empire, we test the predictions and find supporting evidence. These findings refine bellicist theory by highlighting the contingent benefits of conflict on state development when accounting for the complexities involved in state financing.
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Outgroup Tax Compliance and Tax Morale: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Turkey (with Giuliana Pardelli)Under ReviewHow do social norms and group identity shape tax attitudes? While citizens are often described as conditional cooperators, it remains unclear whether they respond equally to in-group and out-group behavior. We develop an identity-conditioned account of peer effects in tax morale, arguing that peer behavior updates descriptive norms—beliefs about what others actually do—and that this updating is stronger when the peer is a co-ethnic. A nationally representative survey experiment in Turkey (N=1,034) randomly varied the ethnicity and tax behavior of a business owner in a vignette. Observing tax evasion reduced respondents' tax morale, but only when the evader was a co-ethnic; identical out-group evasion had no effect. Mechanism tests show shifts in descriptive norm beliefs, not fairness perceptions or institutional trust. In-group evasion also depressed support for redistribution, while information about access to public goods did not. These results reveal that social norms of compliance are group-bound, highlighting how identity shapes the microfoundations of cooperation and the design of effective fiscal communication.
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Strategic Frameworks for Women's Rights: Experimental Evidence from Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey (with Caglayan Baser and Ekrem T. Baser)International agreements and domestic reforms frequently target women's rights. However, public endorsement lags behind reforms, leaving progress vulnerable to backlash. How effective are different advocacy frames when such rights are contested? We study this question through three preregistered survey experiments in Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt, evaluating six common frames—universal rights, religion, nationalism, maternity, international status, and economic development—across family, economic, and political domains. Using a unified Bayesian multilevel model, we estimate average and heterogeneous treatment effects. Results suggest that no frame is universally effective. Persuasion is conditional on whether a frame activates a salient latent social cleavage. A frame which broadens inclusion for some entrenches unequal attitudes for others. Backlash is therefore endogenous to persuasion. Across domains, family attitudes are more resistant, and political attitudes are more elastic. These findings highlight the limits of country-level assessments, and demonstrate that the domestic adoption of gender-equal norms depend on local context.
Book Manuscript
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Taxation and State Building Under DiversityRevise & Resubmit at Cambridge University PressI argue that ethnic and religious diversity impede state building and taxation by increasing the costs of investment in the state capacity. This is because, in more diverse settings, different ethnic/religious identities make it more difficult for the state to acquire information about the population. Conventional explanations for the negative relationship between diversity and taxation emphasize citizens' aversion to taxation, as these funds may be used for redistribution or public goods that benefit out-groups. My argument, instead, focuses on the problem of acquiring information and designing an effective tax collection bureaucracy in ethnically or religiously diverse societies, given the difficulties bureaucrats face in communicating with different linguistic groups and penetrating outgroup networks.
I also explore the distributive consequences of these dynamics. Contrary to intuitive expectations, I show that ruling groups often bear higher tax and conscription burdens than minorities because obtaining information about them by the state agents is easier. Empirically, I draw on extensive archival work in the Ottoman archives, construct and analyze original historical large-N datasets, complemented by qualitative analysis of archival documents and data from secondary sources, to demonstrate that diversity undermines information capacity, bureaucratic capacity, and taxation, and that diversity increases the costs of investment in state capacity. Using contemporary cross-country and within-country data, I also show a robust relationship between diversity and these outcomes.
More broadly, the book contributes to debates on state capacity, taxation, and the historical transition from empires to more homogeneous nation-states, and offers an account of the relative fiscal weakness and eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire.