Research
My research relates to the fields of Comparative Politics, Democratization Research and Comparative Authoritarianism. I am particularly interested in studying how economic and political inequalities affect political behavior of authoritarian elites and citizens living under an autocratic regime as well as how to measure and conceptualize regime transformation epsiodes (autocratization and democratization). Empirically, I apply quantitative methods (multilevel models, Differences-in-Differences estimators for panel data) and adopt a comparative perspective (cross-national comparisons). Below you find information on current working papers and projects.
Work in progress
- Croissant, Aurel & Lars Lott (2024). Democratic Resilience in the Twenty-First Century. Search for an analytical framework and explorative analysis. Revise and Resubmit
- Lott, Lars, Katrin Kinzelbach, & Staffan I. Lindberg (2024). Can Free Academia Withstand Autocratization? Why some Universities Wither While Others Survive. Revise and Resubmit
- Lott, Lars & Lutz Bornmann (2024). Is research performance related to academic freedom? A large-scale empirical analysis on the national level. Under Review
- Lott, Lars (2025). How Academic Freedom Evolves. The Non-Democratic Roots of University Education and the Emergence of Academic Freedom. Under Review
- Lott, Lars & Aurel Croissant (2025). Autocratic Deepening. In Handbook of Democratization and De-Democratization ed. Matthijs Bogaards. Berlin. De Gruyter. Submitted
- Lott, Lars (2025). Redistribution Mood and Economic Inequalities. Work in progress
- Lott, Lars (2021). How do past repression and indoctrination affect redistributive preferences? Work in progress