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In contexts where social cleavages are universally salient, how can political alliances across social identity groups be forged? A wealth of research examines the effects of either electoral rules or social identity on electoral behavior, but the interplay between these two factors is understudied. This article leverages original datasets of tribal voting coalitions, parliamentarian constituent casework logs, and a national survey in Jordan to demonstrate how institutions interact with social identity to shape distributive politics. Within single non-transferable vote districts (SNTV), representatives win their seats based on tribal support and practice tribal favoritism in service provision. On the contrary, elected officials in single member plurality districts (SMDs) cobble together more diverse coalitions to win their seats and distribute state benefits more evenly between in-group and out-group members. Bolstering these findings, data from a 2014 nationwide survey show that a history of having tribal connections with parliamentarians' augments voter turnout in SNTV districts, whereas it has no relationship with voter turnout in SMDs. This article offers an understanding of why politicians build electoral coalitions and distribute clientelistic benefits within or across social identity groups with important implications for the consideration of electoral institutional design in developing countries.

A surprisingly large proportion of the world's dictators today hold elections, so much so that scholars have coined the term ``electoral authoritarianism" to identify this oxymoronic phenomenon. Yet, the role these elections play in shaping authoritarian politics for the regime and its citizenry alike is undertheorized. Do the specific types of institutions that govern elections under authoritarianism matter? In democracies we see sustained relationships between voters and their elected representatives. Do elections shape enduring citizen-state linkages under authoritarianism or are they simply isolated events of state-society interaction? Moreover, how do electoral institutions under authoritarianism interact with salient ethnic cleavages and local political landscapes? I argue that the way in which electoral institutions are structured have meaningful consequences for citizens living under authoritarianism much as they do for those living in democracies – a fact that is almost completely overlooked in the literature. Taking electoral institutions under authoritarianism seriously, this research analyzes the effects of variations in electoral rules on voter behavior, parliamentarian clientelistic service provision, and ethnically-based citizen-state linkages. Drawing upon data I collected from over two years of fieldwork in Jordan, I investigate how the Jordanian regime overcomes a classic conundrum for dictators who hold elections: how to cultivate widespread loyalty to the regime while maintaining deep-seated divisions among the elite and the masses alike to avoid threats to their power from unmitigated collective action. I claim that elections help the ruler solve both sides of this quandary. I leverage shifts in the electoral institutional design throughout history to investigate how different types of electoral institutions are structured to ensure that parliamentarians win their seats with narrow voter coalitions rather than broad-based ones, encouraging parliamentarians to win their seats based on clientelistic rather than programmatic appeals. I explain how the use of a single, non-transferable vote system favors political mobilization on ethnic lines when compared to the use of a single-member plurality system in Jordan. The dataset I draw from comprises of the full election results from 1989 to 2013, parliamentarian constituent casework logs, tribal indices I constructed for each electoral district, more than a hundred qualitative interviews with stakeholders in the elections, as well as a national poll of eligible voters in Jordan.My empirical evidence demonstrates how elections serve as a reliable mechanism of rent distribution in authoritarian settings, facilitating the purchase of loyalty from tribal sectors of the population who have historically been open to trading support for privileged access to state benefits. Under these conditions, parliamentarians spend all of their time catering to the personal concerns of their constituents rather than pursuing national legislation and they become beholden to the regime for fulfilling their requests. In the final chapter, I show how the rules governing the elections can either enhance or diminish ethnic identity as the basis for political mobilization and distribution of government goods and services long after the elections. These findings are evidence that for citizens living in a dictatorship electoral institutional design plays an important role in their ability to access state goods and services through their member of parliament.

AbstractArmed groups seeking to govern territory require the cooperation of many civilians, who are widely perceived as enemy collaborators after conflict ends. The empirical literature on attitudes toward transitional justice focuses heavily on fighters, overlooking more nuanced understandings of proportional justice for civilian collaborators. Through a survey experiment conducted in an Iraqi city that was controlled by the Islamic State, we find that variations in the type of collaboration an actor engages in strongly determine preferences for punishment and forgiveness. While exposure to violence is associated with a greater desire for revenge, perceived volition behind an act—a relatively unstudied factor—is much more important. This research provides unique empirical data on the microfoundations of enemy collaborator culpability. By widening our analytical lens to consider a more realistically broad spectrum of enemy collaboration, we avoid affirming a false dichotomy between victims and perpetrators that is commonly adopted in postwar settings.

Many studies of women's electability in the developing world focus on single traits such as gender, ethnicity, or religion. Employing an original survey experiment in Jordan, we examine the impacts of multiple, intersecting candidate identities on voter preferences. We show empirically
that existing theories of electoral behavior alone cannot account for women's electability. An intersectional lens that considers how power structures shape electability and produce complex effects that must be empirically verified in different contexts is needed. Although less electable overall,
female candidates fare as well as males from similar social identity groups. Our findings underscore the need to apply intersectionality to theories of electoral behavior in the developing world and lay the groundwork for a larger research agenda explaining women's electability in Arab elections.

AbstractScholars increasingly recognize the plurality of leaders who exercise de facto authority in governing communities. But what limits different leaders' power to organize distinct types of collective action beyond the law? We contend that leaders' influence varies by activity, depending on the degree to which the activity matches the leaders' geographic scope and field of expertise ("domain congruence"). Employing conjoint endorsement experiments in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, we test whether domain congruence predicts citizens' willingness to comply with leader requests across different activities and examine the mechanisms that explain its importance. We find limits on leaders' authority, that the concept of domain congruence helps predict the activities over which leaders have the greatest influence, and that leaders' domain legitimacy may underpin the relationship between domain congruence and authority.