Advisors: Timothy Frye and Isabela Mares 

A Virginia native, Israel Marques is currently a graduate student in the MA/Ph.D program at Columbia University. His current research interests are primarily focused on how authoritarian regimes maintain themselves in power, where threats to continued power for such regimes arise, and ultimately how institutional investments shape preferences over particular strategies of accomplishing this end. Related to this, he is also conducting research on preferences for redistributive programs in authoritarian regimes and in comparative work contrasting determinants of such preferences with democracy in Eastern Europe and the foermer Soviet Republics. Prior to joining Columbia's MA/Ph.D program, Israel graduated with honors from Dartmouth College in 2007 with a dual degree in Government and History modified. 

Teaching and Research Interests: authoritarian institutions and regime structures, regime maintenance in authoritarian regimes, democratization and democratic collapse, redistributive policies and preferences for them, regime dynamics and transitions in Post-Communist states, Russian regional politics.