Projects

Political Violence in Democracies

This project examines the reciprocal relationship between democratic erosion and political violence in advanced democracies. At a time when democratic norms are under pressure and extremist rhetoric and violence are on the rise, we investigate two central questions: under what conditions do citizens support political violence, and how does political violence, in turn, shape democratic attitudes and institutions? Drawing on original survey experiments embedded in nationally representative samples across multiple Western democracies, combined with observational data on violent events, public opinion, voting behavior, and elite discourse, the project develops a novel theoretical framework linking elite narratives, citizen attitudes, and institutional change. By bridging research on democratic decline and the consequences of political violence, the project aims to provide rigorous, comparative evidence on how violence both reflects and reshapes the health of democratic systems. More information can be found here.

Education for Democracy Index (EfDI)

The Education for Democracy Index (EfDI) is a tool that measures how well a country’s educational policies and practices promote democratic competences (i.e. knowledge, skills, values, attitudes and behaviours). It is a comprehensive multidimensional index in that it captures not only the areas of education that are specifically intended to foster such competences, such as citizenship education, but also institutional characteristics, such as the degree of school autonomy that may have unintended consequences on these outcomes. For more information see the project’s website: EfDI.

Under Review:

  1. “The Education for Democracy Index: Measuring and Assessing the Democratic Performance of Education Systems” [with Bryony Hoskins and Jan Germen Janmaat]

  2. “Education for Democracy: Explaining Why Education Systems Differ in Fostering Democratic Competences” [with Bryony Hoskins and Jan Germen Janmaat]

  3. “Effectiveness and Inequality in the Whole School Approach to Civic Education across 24 countriess” [with Bryony Hoskins and Jan Germen Janmaat]

Legacy of Racial Violence

The LEGACY project seeks to address gaps in our understanding of the long-term effects of past racial violence on contemporary communities – particularly economic, political, and health inequalities between, as well as within, Black and white communities in the United States. Of equal importance, we are interested in understanding how communities mitigate the long-term effects of racial violence. More information can be found at the Peace Research Institute Oslo PRIO.

Publications:

“Intergenerational Immobility: A Legacy of Racial Violence” Security Studies 32, no.4-5 (2023): 847-870. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2023.2256664

Under Review:

  1. “Collective Violence and Educational Attainment: A Legacy of the Red Summer” [with Jonas Vestby]

  2. “The Long-Run Economic Consequences of Lynching in the United States”

Working papers:

  1. “The legacy of racial violence on political trust” [with Helga Malmin Binningsbø]

  2. “The Long Reach of Jim Crow: White Migration and Racial Violence outside the South”

The Socioeconomics of Islamist Radicalization in the West (SOCIR)

It is widely assumed among terrorism experts that poverty is not a cause of jihadi violence. However, new theory and evidence suggest that the poverty-terrorism link may operate differently in rich and poor countries, and that economic deprivation may affect radicalization more in wealthy societies.This project will test several sets of hypotheses about the link between economic deprivation and Islamist extremism in the West. More information can be found at the London School of Economics LSE.

Publications:

“Fifty Shades of Deprivation: Disaggregating Types of Economic Disadvantage in Studies of Terrorism?” [with Steffen Hertog, Thomas Hegghammer, and Gudrun Østby] International Studies Review Volume 26, Issue 4, December 2024, viae045

Working papers:

  1. “Radicalization in the West: The Role of Socioeconomic Status” [with Steffen Hertog, Thomas Hegghammer, and Gudrun Østby]
  2. “Migration status and Islamist radicalization in the West” [with Steffen Hertog, Thomas Hegghammer, and Gudrun Østby]