Scott Williamson is Associate Professor in Comparative Political Economy at the Department of Politics and International Relations and a Tutorial Fellow at Magdalen College. His research focuses on popular politics and institutions in authoritarian regimes, support for democracy, attitudes toward foreign aid and migration, and the politics of the Middle East. Scott is the PI of the UKRI-funded ERC Starting Grant Democratic Values and Authoritarian Legitimacy (DEVAL). His book, The King Can Do No Wrong: Blame Games and Power Sharing in Authoritarian Regimes, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. Scott's other work has been published in journals including Science, the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and the British Journal of Political Science. He received his PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2020.
Publications
Book
- The King Can Do No Wrong: Blame Games and Power Sharing in Authoritarian Regimes. 2024. Cambridge University Press.
Articles
- When Hearts Meet Minds: Complementary Effects of Perspective-Getting and Information on Refugee Inclusion. 2025. Political Science Research & Methods. (With Claire Adida, Adeline Lo, Melina Platas, and Lauren Prather).
- Respect the Process: The Public Cost of Unilateral Action in Comparative Perspective. 2025. Journal of Politics. (With Jonathan Chu).
- People Consistently View Elections and Civil Liberties as Key Components of Democracy. 2024. Science. (With Jonathan Chu and Eddy S.F. Yeung).
- Executive Compliance with Parliamentary Powers under Authoritarianism: Evidence from Jordan. 2024. Governance. (With Marwa Shalaby).
- Do Proxies Provide Plausible Deniability? Evidence from Experiments on Three Surveys. 2024. Journal of Conflict Resolution.
- Learning from Null Effects: A Bottom-Up Approach. 2023. Political Analysis. (With Ala' Alrababa'h, Andrea Dillon, Dominik Hangartner, Jens Hainmueller, Michael Hotard, David Laitin, and Jeremy Weinstein).
- Preaching Politics: How Politicization Undermines Religious Authority in the Middle East. 2023. British Journal of Political Science. (With A.Kadir Yildirim, Sharan Grewal, Mirjam Kuenkler).
- Where’s the Money From? Attitudes toward Donor Countries and Foreign Aid in the Arab World. 2022. International Studies Quarterly. (With Renu Singh).
- Refugees to the Rescue: Motivating Pro-Refugee Public Engagement during the COVID-19 Pandemic. 2022. Journal of Experimental Political Science. (With Claire Adida, Adeline Lo, and Lauren Prather).
- Did Egypt’s Post-Uprising Crime Wave Increase Support for Authoritarian Rule? 2022. Journal of Peace Research. (With Lisa Blaydes, Alexandra Blackman, Caroline Abadeer).
- Signal Received? Authoritarian Elections and the Salience of Autocrats. 2022. Electoral Studies. (With Paul Schuler and Raphael Cunha).
- Reporting All Results Efficiently: A RARE Proposal to Open Up the File Drawer. 2021. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (WIth David Laitin, Edward Miguel, et al.).
- Elections, Legitimacy, and Compliance in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from the Arab World. 2021. Democratization.
- Family Matters: How Immigrant Histories Can Promote Inclusion. 2021. American Political Science Review. (With Claire Adida, Adeline Lo, Melina Platas, Lauren Prather, and Seth Werfel).
- Attitudes toward Migrants in a Highly-Impacted Economy: Evidence from the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan. 2021. Comparative Political Studies. (With Ala’ Alrababa’h, Andrea Dillon, Dominik Hangartner, Jens Hainmueller, Jeremy Weinstein).
- Contesting Narratives of Repression: Experimental Evidence from Sisi's Egypt. 2020. Journal of Peace Research. (With Mashail Malik).
- Legislatures and Policy Making in Authoritarian Regimes. 2020. Comparative Political Studies. (With Beatriz Magaloni).
- Countering Misperceptions to Reduce Prejudice: An Experiment on Attitudes toward Muslim Americans. 2020. Journal of Experimental Political Science.
- Voting in Transition: Participation and Alienation in Egypt's 2012 Presidential Election. 2018. Middle East Law and Governance. (With Alexandra Blackman and Caroline Abadeer).
Selected Other Publications
- Why do people continue to support politicians who attack their democracies? 2025. The Conversation.
- How Dictators Evade Blame. 2024. Fifteen Eighty Four Blog.
- How different people around the world understand democracy -- and why it matters. 2024. The Conversation. (With Jonathan Chu and Eddy S.F. Yeung).
- Autocratic Blame Games. 2023. European Consortium for Political Research.
- Americans see Afghan and Ukrainian refugees very differently. Why? 2022. The Washington Post. (With Claire Adida, Adeline Lo, Melina Platas, and Lauren Prather).
- Popular Politics in Egypt: From the 2011 Revolution to al-Sisi's Authoritarian Revival. 2021. Project on Middle East Democracy.
