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Doctoral Student
Comparative Politics

• Fields of Study

  • Comparative Politics, Asian Politics

• About

  Kharis’s research interests include democratization, political parties and elections, and party system development in new democracies.  His dissertation research looks at the origins and evolution of dominant party systems, which combine regular electoral contestation for power with an absence of party turnover in government.  The project draws on an analysis of nearly 700 ruling party cases to establish two key findings: 

  • Most dominant party systems occur at the beginning of new regimes and gradually break down into something more competitive, and 
  • Dominant party systems are much more common in parliamentary regimes than presidential ones.  Presidentialism makes long periods of one-party rule less likely by reducing the effect of partisan advantages in elections for the executive.

  In addition to the dissertation, Kharis is also doing research on institutional design for divided societies (with Joel Selway) and on the politics of asymmetric defense alliances (with Gary Uzoni).  A paper on the first topic is forthcoming at Comparative Political Studies. 

• Education

  • University of Michigan, PhD (Political Science), 2012
  • University of Rochester, BA (Political Science), 2002

• Awards

  • Kingdon Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, Dept. of Political Science, 2009-2010 (three awarded yearly)
  • Sweetland Writing Center Junior Fellow, 2009-2010
  • Undergraduate Honors Program Junior Fellow, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, 2007-2008

• Grants

  • Rackham One-Term Dissertation Fellowship, 2011
  • Dissertation Writing Fellowship, UM Sweetland Writing Institute, 2010
  • Summer Collaboration Research Grant (w/ Allen Hicken), UM Rackham Graduate School, 2008
  • Dissertation Summer Research Grant, UM Dept. of Political Science, 2008

• Presentations

  • “The Cinderella Effect: Why Dominant Parties Last Longer in Parliamentary Regimes,” presented at MPSA, Chicago, April 2012
  • “Who’s Dominant?: Incumbent Longevity in Multiparty Regimes, 1950-2006,” paper presented at APSA, Washington D.C., September 2010
  • “The Structural Causes of Dominant Party Defeat in Taiwan,” paper presented at MPSA, Chicago, April 2010

• Dissertation Title

  • The Origins and Decline of Dominant Party Systems

• Dissertation Chair

  • Allen Hicken

• Dissertation Committee

  • Bill Clark, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Mary Gallagher, Daniel Little (Sociology)