Benjamin Yoel
About Me
Hello! I'm Benjamin Yoel, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Michigan State University and a predoctoral fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. I was previously a visiting PhD student at the University of Chicago's Center on Democracy, a data consultant at the Democratic Erosion Consortium, and the Editorial Assistant at The Journal of Politics. I study democratic backsliding, with a focus on the nexus of domestic and international factors in shaping domestic opposition to democratic backsliding. My other research interests include understanding the broader causes and consequences of democratic backsliding as well as making different types of data more accessible to researchers and practitioners.
My dissertation, "Essays on Resistance to Democratic Backsliding," sheds lights on the role of two factors: 1) the composition of domestic opposition movements and 2) international factors. My work uses conjoint survey experiments in Hungary and Israel as well as natural language processing of an original dataset of remarks by US Secretaries of State from 1997 to 2025 (N=17,100 remarks). I have published three articles: one in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research on the international consequences of democratic backsliding for public attitudes toward democracy, one in Nature Scientific Data introducing novel data on the US, and one in American Politics Research on executive leader rhetoric. I have several projects in the pipeline, including a cross-national dataset on democratic erosion as an events-based process (R&R, Nature), a new dataset on the US Congress (under review), and a project on the implications of ascriptive identities in shaping public tolerance of democratic transgressions (under review).
In addition to my research, I am passionate about teaching and mentoring students from a range of backgrounds. I have mentored over a dozen undergraduate and master's students, including in my role as a data consultant at the Democratic Erosion Consortium and as a research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research Institute. I have also led seminars introducing students to quantitative methods and given guest lectures at different universities on my substantive areas of focus.
Before starting my PhD at MSU, I lived in both Thailand and Israel.
Research and Teaching Interests
Democratic Backsliding, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Public Opinion, Contentious Politics, International Security.
Website benjaminyoel.com
