About me

Comparative political scientist studying how authoritarian governance, information control, and elite bargaining shape political order and democratic erosion.

I am an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Durham University’s School of Government and International Affairs, where I am conducting a UKRI-funded research project on elections, rents, and war-to-peace transitions. My work focuses on authoritarian governance, elite bargaining, and the ways in which regimes use media and institutional ambiguity to manage opposition and maintain control.

I received my PhD in International Development from SOAS University of London in 2024. My doctoral research examined Afghanistan’s political order (2001–2021), analysing local power brokers, electoral crises, and the dynamics of democratisation and state-building. During my PhD, I was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for Conflict Studies, where I deepened my work on comparative political analysis in conflict-affected and authoritarian settings.

My current project — The Power of Bargaining: Elections, Rents, and War-to-Peace Transitions — builds on extensive fieldwork and elite interviews, bringing together comparative political economy, media and politics, and human rights research. Alongside this, I am developing a broader research programme on information control and coercive ambiguity: how regimes in resource-constrained and eroding democracies govern media and public debate through vague rules, uneven enforcement, and uncertainty rather than overt censorship or sophisticated surveillance.

My professional path connects academia, journalism, and policy. I have held research positions at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights at Lund University, served as a country expert for the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, and worked as a Specialist Researcher for BBC Media Action, where I researched media dynamics under Taliban rule with a focus on misinformation, disinformation, and public perceptions of media practices. In that role, I conducted elite interviews with Afghan media owners and journalists and contributed to survey research and focus group discussions as part of a U.S. Department of State-funded project.

I previously taught at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul and worked as a broadcast journalist at the BBC World Service (BBC Persian), where I covered elections, security transitions, and regional politics.

Beyond academic work, I pursue photography as a way of capturing quieter, reflective moments in everyday life.

More about my work can be found in the research and publications sections. For collaborations, media enquiries, or supervision requests, you can contact me here.