My research interests lie at the intersection of international security and international institutions. Specifically, I seek to understand international efforts to regulate the tools with which humans kill, hurt, and threaten one another. I use a mixed methods approach to investigate three types of questions.

First, I examine the politics of multilateral weapons governance. My research (revise and resubmit) assesses how bilateral and multilateral nuclear negotiations shape one another through expectations of diffuse reciprocity, and how such expectations can, over time, lead to deeper challenges to the nuclear order. In research with Steven Ward (University of Cambridge), I assess how small states can mount revisionist challenges to international order, through a case study of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This research is published in the European Journal of International Relations. Additionally, in research published in the Journal of Strategic Studies, I examine how anticipatory governance efforts to regulate emerging technologies may lead to hollow agreements that regulate technologies never developed. I demonstrate these dynamics using a case comparison of agreements to ban weapons that produce fragments not detectable by X-rays and to regulate lasers designed to blind.

Second, I use survey experiments to understand public opinion regarding nuclear weapons and international agreements. My research has examined Chinese public opinion regarding nuclear weapons (with Lincoln Hines, Georgia Institute of Technology, and published in Research & Politics) and the effectiveness of praising versus shaming on public support for joining international treaties (published in the Review of International Organizations). In ongoing research projects, I use survey experiments to a) examine the potentially permissive effects of the nuclear taboo and b) assess public opinion in NATO countries regarding nuclear deterrence and NATO’s nuclear mission (with Steven Ward, University of Cambridge).

Finally, my research examines how participation in international institutions and negotiations shapes countries’ preferences and policies. In work with Nina Obermeier (King’s College London), published in the Journal of Politics, we develop a new method for estimating the effect of participating in international organizations on states’ preference similarity. In ongoing research, I assess how bilateral and multilateral nuclear negotiations shape one another.