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 Post-Soviet Politics 

Publications

Under Review

Working Papers
  • "Re-assurance or Anxiety: Public perception of Cyber Institutions from Survey Experiments in Russia and the United States." 
    Abstract Using a survey experiment, the second paper examines the psychological mechanisms explaining public perception of cyber institutions. This experiment studies American and Russian public and elite reactions to the efforts by their respective governments to increase offensive cyber capability. My findings show that, instead of reassuring the public of their own safety, an increase in the cyber capabilities of their government makes citizens anxious because of the dual-use nature of cyber operations – in addition to using such tools to fight adversaries, the government can use these tools to surveil its own population. Unlike the public, elites in both countries are less receptive to exposure to different types of cyber institutions and report a more accurate assessment of the desired and actual effects of cyber institutions. As U.S. and Russian cyber policies are currently being debated and created, these timely findings have important implications for policymakers – leaders of both countries should carefully evaluate whether over-spending government resources on extended cyber bureaucracies, meant to deal with an inflated threat of cyber attacks, is worth the potential political costs.

Book Chapters

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General Audience Articles