Selective Solidarity Theory (SST)

My first major contribution is the development of Selective Solidarity Theory (SST), which explains how social hierarchies shape uneven solidarity toward victims and perpetrators of violence. At its core, SST shows that solidarity is conditional rather than universal: people extend support selectively, depending on whether identities, hierarchies, and social norms align with their own group interests. It highlights the political and social mechanisms behind victim-blaming and leniency toward perpetrators, revealing how responses to violence are filtered through calculations of group image and status.

Drawing on survey experiments in Bangladesh and the United States, SST demonstrates that shared identity can reduce support for accountability in cases of violence against women, while hierarchical group status and norm violations condition when empathy is extended or withheld.

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SST is deeply interdisciplinary: it integrates theories from political science (comparative politics, political behavior), sociology (social dominance, intersectionality), and psychology (intergroup bias, moral judgment) to create a comprehensive framework for understanding responses to gender-based violence. Beyond violence against women, Selective Solidarity Theory offers a generalizable framework for understanding conditional empathy and bias in other domains of politics and society, including migration, minority rights, and transitional justice. This framework not only advances academic debates but also has direct policy applications for college campus surveys, Title IX responses, and institutional reforms in both the Global South and the U.S. contexts.

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SST serves as the foundation for my book project, Selective Solidarity and Violence Against Women: A Comparative Study of Bangladesh and the United States, and a book proposal is under review at Oxford University Press.

 

Autocratic PTSD

My second major contribution is the concept of Autocratic PTSD, which captures the psychological and institutional scars that persist long after authoritarian regimes collapse. At its core, Autocratic PTSD highlights how the trauma of authoritarian rule does not end with regime change. Citizens carry deep distrust of political institutions, learned helplessness in civic participation, and fear of dissent, while institutions themselves remain weakened, corrupt, or paralyzed. These legacies explain why many democracies struggle to consolidate even after the formal return of elections and constitutions.

 

This framework is interdisciplinary: it bridges political science (comparative democratization, authoritarian resilience), psychology (collective trauma, political trust), and transitional justice (institutional reform, reconciliation) to explain why democratic recovery is often slow, uneven, and fragile. While rooted in post-authoritarian transitions, the concept of Autocratic PTSD is broadly generalizable to other contexts where institutions and communities must recover from systemic trauma, such as post-conflict societies, colonial legacies, and fragile democracies.

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Autocratic PTSD forms the foundation of my book project, After the Fall: Psychological Legacies, Institutional Ruins, and Political Struggles in Post-Autocratic States. By connecting individual psychological scars with institutional breakdown, this project shows why restoring democracy requires more than institutional design—it demands rebuilding trust, norms, and capacity across both society and the state.