Research

My research focuses on the politics of foreign aid, specifically how domestic political incentives within both aid donors and aid recipients interact to create preferences for foreign aid partners. 

My current book project, “Regime Type and Policy Volatility: A Common-Pool Resource Approach to Developing Countries’ Foreign Partner Preferences” explores how regime type shapes foreign partner preferences in developing countries through policy volatility. This project highlights the role of regular competitive elections on public service provision, with a focus on infrastructure. I leverage the common-pool resource framework to generate a theory of policy volatility based on regime type. Since foreign donors have different abilities in meeting volatile policies in developing countries, policy volatility creates enabling or disabling conditions for donor competition. This project builds on 54 elite interviews conducted over three months in Cameroon and Zambia, focusing on bureaucratic elites and their policy considerations in the wake of a contraction in Chinese overseas financing. 

Foreign Aid Competition 

“An Offer You Can Refuse: A Host Country’s Strategic Allocation of Development Financing”, Daedalus 150, no. 4 (2021): 194-219

"26 Infrastructure Financing". De Gruyter Handbook of Cities, Infrastructure and International Relations, edited by Michele Acuto, Simon Curtis, Ian Klaus and Gaea Morales, De Gruyter, 2026, pp. 419-442.

Chinese Overseas Development Finance in Africa 

“Resource-Backed Loans in Sub-Saharan Africa”, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper #9923, Washington DC (2022) (With David Mihalyi, Diego Rivetti, and James Cust)

“Great walls over African rivers: Chinese engagement in African hydropower projects.” Development Policy Review 37, no. 3 (2019): 313-330. (With Deborah Brautigam)

“Logics of Arms Deals: Multilevel Evidence from China-Zambia Relations”, CARI Working Paper #37, Johns Hopkins University SAIS, Washington DC (2020)