Hello all, 

My name is Paige Maylath and I am a rising junior in the School of Foreign Service. I am majoring in STIA and minoring in statistics. This summer, I will be building on research that I began in Professor Irfan Nooruddin’s Krogh Honors Seminar, and he will be serving as my research mentor. This research examines the interactions between the values underlying large cultural conceptions of democracy, militarism, and gender. I began researching the interactions between gender and democracy at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security (GIWPS). The policy team at GIWPS sparked my interest in democratic backsliding and its implications for women’s well-being. Over the last several months, I began incorporating time-lagged variables and mediation analysis methods to begin making the case for causal pathways between these phenomena. 

Through this research, I hope to develop a predictive framework for the analysis of a state’s susceptibility to democratic backsliding. This framework would have important implications for national security, institutional analysis, and foreign policy. By examining the interplay of gender equality and militarism, it is possible to gain insight into a state’s preferences, and these preferences may be a powerful indicator of a predisposition to authoritarian rule. In addition to the analytical value of this framework, it might also lay the groundwork for policy action to counteract the rise of authoritarianism. Examination of the values and preferences that enable autocratization provides an opportunity to use foreign policy tools to proactively address the root causes of democratic backsliding. The descriptive power of the framework I have developed so far is limited by the small number of independent and control variables that I have incorporated into the model. Early analysis suggests that factors like NATO membership and time reinforcement of institutional strength impact the descriptive power of the indicators I have selected. This summer, I hope to strengthen my model by identifying key interacting variables and incorporating them into the model. I also intend to strengthen the theoretical framework underlying my model by engaging more thoroughly with literature on the topic. 

I am really looking forward to meeting you all and discussing your research.