Research Agenda
Why do authoritarian governments adopt institutions that resemble democratic practices such as participatory budgeting? How do citizens interpret and respond to these reforms over time? My research asks whether institutionalized participation reshapes state--citizen relationships or mainly reinforces regime stability, and how citizens' views of the state change as participatory institutions become routine.
I focus on Uzbekistan, where the nationwide participatory budgeting program launched in 2021. The program allows citizens to propose and vote on local infrastructure and social-development projects, from road construction and water systems to repairs of schools and health facilities. Although participatory budgeting resembles a democratic innovation in form, it operates within a centralized authoritarian system with limited political competition, weak civil society, and constrained public discourse. I examine how citizens' perceptions of state legitimacy change when an authoritarian government engages them in participatory practices.
Using a mixed-methods approach, I find that citizens view participatory budgeting as a popular and preferred mechanism for distributing public goods. My interviews suggest that the program also makes the state more visible and responsive in the eyes of citizens. Comparing my interviews from 2023 and 2026, I observe that although citizens continue to evaluate participatory budgeting favorably, initial improvements in perceived responsiveness diminish as the program becomes a routine mode of governance and citizens recalibrate their expectations in the absence of deeper institutional change. Using a survey experiment, I examined whether priming respondents with information about the participatory budgeting process in Uzbekistan shifts their perceptions of state legitimacy and did not find evidence that it does. In my interviews, citizens consistently credited their communities when projects won and blamed themselves or their mahalla leaders when projects lost, while holding contractors responsible for poor construction. Winning requires substantial effort to mobilize votes, so citizens see successful projects as their own achievement. They know the funding comes from the state, but they feel a greater sense of ownership over the outcome. The program can therefore make the state appear responsive without producing legitimacy gains. This pattern may explain the null results of the first survey experiment, since participation may not affect state legitimacy when citizens do not credit the state for project outcomes. I am now conducting a second survey experiment to test this pattern of credit attribution.
Theoretical Contributions
My research develops a theory of when public participation improves perceptions of state legitimacy in authoritarian settings. Participation is more likely to strengthen legitimacy when citizens value having a voice, view the process as fair, and interpret successful projects as evidence of state competence. These effects also depend on whether citizens credit the state for the process and its outcomes. Legitimacy gains are less likely when citizens view participation as symbolic, experience implementation failures, or attribute project outcomes to their own communities rather than the government. They may also diminish once participation becomes routine.
Authoritarian governments may continue using participatory budgeting even when legitimacy gains are not immediately visible. Such programs can provide information about local needs and reduce the administrative costs of allocating scarce resources. Transparent procedures may also reduce red tape and limit opportunities for corruption. Participatory budgeting can therefore remain valuable to the state as a tool of governance, even when it does not directly improve citizens’ perceptions of state legitimacy.
Empirical Research
My research employs a mixed-methods design that combines survey experiments, observational data, and qualitative evidence. In an original online survey experiment, I recruited nearly 2,000 respondents through Telegram, Uzbekistan’s most widely used digital platform. I tested whether providing information about the country’s participatory budgeting process changes perceptions of state legitimacy. The experiment produced near-zero average treatment effects. At the same time, respondents expressed broad support for participatory institutions as a mechanism for distributing public goods. Several explanations are possible. Participatory budgeting is already a very popular program and respondents in the survey may have learned little from the information, baseline support may leave little room to increase, and socially desirable responding may compress variation. The credit-attribution account from my interviews is a another explanation, and my second experiment that is currently running tests it directly.
Drawing on 61 semi-structured interviews, I develop the concept of brokered participation: citizens engage with the state through local intermediaries who translate needs into proposals and mobilize others to act on them. Citizens experience the program through the \textit{mahalla}, the smallest administrative unit in the country. Within each mahalla, a small group of activists and elderly residents translates local needs into proposals and mobilizes neighbors to compete for funding against other mahallas. This competition encourages community ownership but also creates inequalities. Wealthy sponsors, large populations and strong leaders often determine which communities win. I show that citizens evaluate the state more favorably when collective effort results in a visible and well-implemented project. These evaluations become less favorable when communities repeatedly lose, perceive the competition as unfair, or encounter poor construction. I also find that the effects on state legitimacy depend on how citizens assign responsibility. Citizens often credit local activists for successful projects and blame their communities, mahalla leaders, or contractors for failures. I argue that participatory budgeting can make the state appear responsive without producing broader or lasting legitimacy gains. Finally, I show that the program can still benefit the government by revealing local needs, lowering administrative costs, mobilizing community resources, and shifting responsibility for project outcomes to local actors.
I also use administrative records from participatory budgeting cycles between 2021 and 2025 to examine how local conditions and institutional rules shape access to funding. I compare rural and urban communities in voting, winning thresholds, and the types of public goods they pursued, and I trace how revisions to program rules and available resources changed competition and the distribution of funds. I find that formally equal procedures create unequal opportunities for communities of different sizes and capacities.
The methodological contributions of my work are twofold. First, I show how researchers can use Telegram to recruit respondents for survey experiments in restrictive political environments where conventional surveys and in-person fieldwork are difficult. Second, I use indirect measures of state legitimacy. Direct questions about confidence in the government or support for the regime may produce socially desirable answers in nondemocratic settings. My experiments instead measure legitimacy through respondents' reactions to institutional processes and hypothetical scenarios, alongside direct measures of regime evaluation. My indirect measures show lower support for the regime than traditional surveys such as the World Bank's \textit{Listening to Citizens of Uzbekistan.}
Active Projects
Beyond my dissertation, I contribute to the Local Economic and Administrative Performance (LEAP) research group. Our coauthored paper, conditionally accepted for publication at the \textit{Policy Studies Journal}, documents participatory budgeting in Uzbekistan as a case of policy entrepreneurship in authoritarian governance. Another project with this team investigates how the origin of foreign investors shapes bureaucratic preferences when weighing economic development against environmental sustainability, using original survey experimental data from Uzbek public servants.
I am also running a second wave of the survey for my project on the diffusion of democratic norms through migration. Using the U.S. green card lottery as a natural experiment, I test whether Uzbek migrants' experiences in a democracy shift political attitudes at home. The project contributes to research on migration and contact theory.
Future Directions
I plan to extend this work to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia. These countries inherited similar administrative institutions from the Soviet Union but now offer different opportunities for citizen participation. In Kazakhstan, I will examine whether better economic conditions lead citizens to experience participatory programs differently from citizens in Uzbekistan. In Kyrgyzstan, I will study how greater local contestation shapes participation and citizens' views of government. In Georgia, where municipal governments and civic groups have more influence than in the other three countries, I will examine how that influence shapes whom citizens credit for public goods. Comparing these cases will show which patterns are specific to Uzbekistan and which extend beyond it, and will allow me to build a broader theory of participatory governance in authoritarian regimes.
I will also study how these reforms affect officials. My interviews suggest that participatory programs change how local administrators understand responsiveness: officials may begin to treat it as a measure of their own performance rather than an obligation to citizens. I will examine whether governments value these institutions for reasons beyond legitimacy. Participatory programs give officials information about local priorities, and they may let governments present difficult allocation decisions as the result of citizen choice. This comparison will show how the same institution can serve different state goals even when its effect on legitimacy is weak.
Why do authoritarian governments adopt institutions that resemble democratic practices such as participatory budgeting? How do citizens interpret and respond to these reforms over time? My research asks whether institutionalized participation reshapes state--citizen relationships or mainly reinforces regime stability, and how citizens' views of the state change as participatory institutions become routine.
I focus on Uzbekistan, where the nationwide participatory budgeting program launched in 2021. The program allows citizens to propose and vote on local infrastructure and social-development projects, from road construction and water systems to repairs of schools and health facilities. Although participatory budgeting resembles a democratic innovation in form, it operates within a centralized authoritarian system with limited political competition, weak civil society, and constrained public discourse. I examine how citizens' perceptions of state legitimacy change when an authoritarian government engages them in participatory practices.
Using a mixed-methods approach, I find that citizens view participatory budgeting as a popular and preferred mechanism for distributing public goods. My interviews suggest that the program also makes the state more visible and responsive in the eyes of citizens. Comparing my interviews from 2023 and 2026, I observe that although citizens continue to evaluate participatory budgeting favorably, initial improvements in perceived responsiveness diminish as the program becomes a routine mode of governance and citizens recalibrate their expectations in the absence of deeper institutional change. Using a survey experiment, I examined whether priming respondents with information about the participatory budgeting process in Uzbekistan shifts their perceptions of state legitimacy and did not find evidence that it does. In my interviews, citizens consistently credited their communities when projects won and blamed themselves or their mahalla leaders when projects lost, while holding contractors responsible for poor construction. Winning requires substantial effort to mobilize votes, so citizens see successful projects as their own achievement. They know the funding comes from the state, but they feel a greater sense of ownership over the outcome. The program can therefore make the state appear responsive without producing legitimacy gains. This pattern may explain the null results of the first survey experiment, since participation may not affect state legitimacy when citizens do not credit the state for project outcomes. I am now conducting a second survey experiment to test this pattern of credit attribution.
Theoretical Contributions
My research develops a theory of when public participation improves perceptions of state legitimacy in authoritarian settings. Participation is more likely to strengthen legitimacy when citizens value having a voice, view the process as fair, and interpret successful projects as evidence of state competence. These effects also depend on whether citizens credit the state for the process and its outcomes. Legitimacy gains are less likely when citizens view participation as symbolic, experience implementation failures, or attribute project outcomes to their own communities rather than the government. They may also diminish once participation becomes routine.
Authoritarian governments may continue using participatory budgeting even when legitimacy gains are not immediately visible. Such programs can provide information about local needs and reduce the administrative costs of allocating scarce resources. Transparent procedures may also reduce red tape and limit opportunities for corruption. Participatory budgeting can therefore remain valuable to the state as a tool of governance, even when it does not directly improve citizens’ perceptions of state legitimacy.
Empirical Research
My research employs a mixed-methods design that combines survey experiments, observational data, and qualitative evidence. In an original online survey experiment, I recruited nearly 2,000 respondents through Telegram, Uzbekistan’s most widely used digital platform. I tested whether providing information about the country’s participatory budgeting process changes perceptions of state legitimacy. The experiment produced near-zero average treatment effects. At the same time, respondents expressed broad support for participatory institutions as a mechanism for distributing public goods. Several explanations are possible. Participatory budgeting is already a very popular program and respondents in the survey may have learned little from the information, baseline support may leave little room to increase, and socially desirable responding may compress variation. The credit-attribution account from my interviews is a another explanation, and my second experiment that is currently running tests it directly.
Drawing on 61 semi-structured interviews, I develop the concept of brokered participation: citizens engage with the state through local intermediaries who translate needs into proposals and mobilize others to act on them. Citizens experience the program through the \textit{mahalla}, the smallest administrative unit in the country. Within each mahalla, a small group of activists and elderly residents translates local needs into proposals and mobilizes neighbors to compete for funding against other mahallas. This competition encourages community ownership but also creates inequalities. Wealthy sponsors, large populations and strong leaders often determine which communities win. I show that citizens evaluate the state more favorably when collective effort results in a visible and well-implemented project. These evaluations become less favorable when communities repeatedly lose, perceive the competition as unfair, or encounter poor construction. I also find that the effects on state legitimacy depend on how citizens assign responsibility. Citizens often credit local activists for successful projects and blame their communities, mahalla leaders, or contractors for failures. I argue that participatory budgeting can make the state appear responsive without producing broader or lasting legitimacy gains. Finally, I show that the program can still benefit the government by revealing local needs, lowering administrative costs, mobilizing community resources, and shifting responsibility for project outcomes to local actors.
I also use administrative records from participatory budgeting cycles between 2021 and 2025 to examine how local conditions and institutional rules shape access to funding. I compare rural and urban communities in voting, winning thresholds, and the types of public goods they pursued, and I trace how revisions to program rules and available resources changed competition and the distribution of funds. I find that formally equal procedures create unequal opportunities for communities of different sizes and capacities.
The methodological contributions of my work are twofold. First, I show how researchers can use Telegram to recruit respondents for survey experiments in restrictive political environments where conventional surveys and in-person fieldwork are difficult. Second, I use indirect measures of state legitimacy. Direct questions about confidence in the government or support for the regime may produce socially desirable answers in nondemocratic settings. My experiments instead measure legitimacy through respondents' reactions to institutional processes and hypothetical scenarios, alongside direct measures of regime evaluation. My indirect measures show lower support for the regime than traditional surveys such as the World Bank's \textit{Listening to Citizens of Uzbekistan.}
Active Projects
Beyond my dissertation, I contribute to the Local Economic and Administrative Performance (LEAP) research group. Our coauthored paper, conditionally accepted for publication at the \textit{Policy Studies Journal}, documents participatory budgeting in Uzbekistan as a case of policy entrepreneurship in authoritarian governance. Another project with this team investigates how the origin of foreign investors shapes bureaucratic preferences when weighing economic development against environmental sustainability, using original survey experimental data from Uzbek public servants.
I am also running a second wave of the survey for my project on the diffusion of democratic norms through migration. Using the U.S. green card lottery as a natural experiment, I test whether Uzbek migrants' experiences in a democracy shift political attitudes at home. The project contributes to research on migration and contact theory.
Future Directions
I plan to extend this work to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia. These countries inherited similar administrative institutions from the Soviet Union but now offer different opportunities for citizen participation. In Kazakhstan, I will examine whether better economic conditions lead citizens to experience participatory programs differently from citizens in Uzbekistan. In Kyrgyzstan, I will study how greater local contestation shapes participation and citizens' views of government. In Georgia, where municipal governments and civic groups have more influence than in the other three countries, I will examine how that influence shapes whom citizens credit for public goods. Comparing these cases will show which patterns are specific to Uzbekistan and which extend beyond it, and will allow me to build a broader theory of participatory governance in authoritarian regimes.
I will also study how these reforms affect officials. My interviews suggest that participatory programs change how local administrators understand responsiveness: officials may begin to treat it as a measure of their own performance rather than an obligation to citizens. I will examine whether governments value these institutions for reasons beyond legitimacy. Participatory programs give officials information about local priorities, and they may let governments present difficult allocation decisions as the result of citizen choice. This comparison will show how the same institution can serve different state goals even when its effect on legitimacy is weak.