Research

Who Draws the Line? Democratic Norms, Boundary-Defining Actors, and Accountability in Democratic Backsliding

My dissertation examines how democratic norms become politically consequential. I argue that democratic accountability depends not only on whether citizens value democracy in the abstract, but on whether they share concrete expectations about which political actions cross a democratic line and whether others would punish them.

The project treats democratic norms as historically grounded boundaries of the unacceptable. These boundaries vary across countries because they are shaped by prior authoritarian experiences, democratic transitions, institutional settlements, and public conflicts over what democracy is supposed to prevent. This perspective helps explain not only where democratic backsliding succeeds, but also where it is resisted, where it is never attempted, and why some institutional changes become publicly legible as democratic violations while others remain absorbed into ordinary political conflict.

Empirically, the dissertation develops a strategy for measuring democratic norms and observing them in action. Using focus groups, original surveys, anchoring vignette experiments, and online survey experiments in Latin America, I study how citizens define democratic red lines, whether they expect others to enforce them, and when those expectations translate into accountability. The project also examines whether courts, electoral authorities, legislatures, and other boundary-defining actors can make contested norms focal by clarifying when a democratic boundary has been crossed.

Reforming Justice, Reframing Democracy: Public Opinion on Mexico’s Judicial Reform

This paper investigates who supports institutional reforms that weaken constraints on the executive and whether exposure to information about their democratic consequences reshapes perceptions of the incumbent’s intentions. The empirical case is Mexico’s 2024 judicial reform, which introduced the popular election of Supreme Court justices and other judges. The paper draws on original survey items fielded across three nationally representative surveys in Mexico in 2024, as well as an online survey experiment conducted before the judicial election. More broadly, the paper asks how citizens evaluate institutional reforms when democratic costs are contested, technical, or reframed as democratic renewal.

Learning by Doing: The Effect of Organizing an Election on Political Attitudes

This project examines whether participating in the administration of an election fosters democratic engagement. It leverages Mexico’s system of randomly selecting citizens to serve as poll workers, treating electoral service as a form of direct institutional experience. The project asks whether helping organize an election can affect political knowledge, attitudes toward electoral institutions, and internal political efficacy. Although data collection was not completed, the research design offers a strategy for studying how democratic institutions shape citizens as temporary administrators of democracy.

Strange Bedfellows? How Ideologically Incoherent Coalitions Shape Partisan Identity

With Salvador Ascencio Pastora.

This paper examines whether voters penalize political parties that enter strategic electoral coalitions with ideologically distant partners. The project combines observational evidence from Mexico’s 2021 federal election with an original survey experiment designed to assess how voters respond when coalition incoherence is made salient. We ask whether coalition strategies reshape party support, weaken partisan identity, or reveal the limits of voter updating in unconsolidated democracies. The paper contributes to debates on electoral coordination, party brands, and ideological accountability.

Assessing the Representativeness of Online Survey Samples in Latin America

With Noam Lupu.

This paper assesses the demographic and political representativeness of online survey samples in Mexico and Argentina. We benchmark two widely used online survey platforms against official population data and examine where these samples approximate or diverge from the target population. The project focuses on demographic characteristics, household conditions, and political engagement, while also considering how these differences matter for substantive research in political behavior. The broader goal is to help researchers make more informed decisions about when and how online samples can be used to study public opinion in Latin America.

Participatory Budgeting as Bounded Direct Democracy: Citizen Agency and Institutional Responsiveness in Mexico City

With Alejandro Díaz Herrera.

This paper examines participatory budgeting in Mexico City as a form of bounded direct democracy. Citizens can propose and select local public projects, but their influence is mediated by administrative rules, feasibility screening, unequal participation, and uneven implementation. Using an original administrative dataset covering participatory budgeting processes from 2011 to 2025, the paper traces the full chain of citizen influence, from project proposal and institutional review to neighborhood voting and government implementation. The project asks how institutional design shapes the relationship between participation, inclusion, and responsiveness in unequal urban contexts.