Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Penn State. My research interests include a focus on elections, identity, and comparative political behavior, as well as the dynamics of political opposition in authoritarian regimes. I study these issues in the Middle East and North Africa, where I use a variety of methods and sources of data to study electoral politics. My research is motivated by a broader interest in understanding the origins of contemporary patterns of mass politics across the region.
My research has received recognition and support from a number of sources, including the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the Open Society Foundations, the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), and the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS). I have also received support from several institutions at Princeton University, including the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), and the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.
My academic research has been published in The Journal of Politics, Party Politics, and The Journal of North African Studies. I have also written for the Washington Post, the Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action, and the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, among other outlets. With Kevan Harris, I am a Principal Investigator for the Iran Social Survey (ISS). A full list of publications, working papers, and ongoing projects can be found on my Research page.
I can be reached at tavana@psu.edu. You can also follow me on Twitter, or visit my Google Scholar profile.