Brett Carter

Brett Carter

Brett Carter

  • Hoover Fellow
  • CDDRL Affiliated Scholar
  • CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2020-2021

Biography

Brett Carter is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Brett received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and has previously held fellowships at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Brett's research focuses on politics in the world's autocracies. His first book, Propaganda in Autocracies (Cambridge University Press), marshals a range of empirical evidence to probe the politics of autocratic propaganda. His second book project, Autocracy in Post-Cold War Africa, explores how Central Africa's autocrats are learning to survive despite the nominally democratic institutions they confront and the international pressure that occasionally makes outright repression costly. His other work has appeared in the Journal of PoliticsBritish Journal of Political ScienceJournal of Conflict ResolutionSecurity Studies, and Journal of Democracy, among others.

His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, United States Institute of Peace, Social Science Research Council, Guggenheim Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University.

Brett's work has been featured in a number of media platforms, including The New York Times and NPR's Radio Lab. Brett is also an occasional contributor to the National Endowment for Democracy's Power 3.0 project, African Arguments, and Africa is a Country. He can be reached via Twitter (@brett_l_carter) and email (blcarter@usc.edu, blcarter@stanford.edu).

publications

Journal Articles
January 2024

Do Chinese Citizens Conceal Opposition to the CCP in Surveys? Evidence from Two Experiments

Author(s)
cover link Do Chinese Citizens Conceal Opposition to the CCP in Surveys? Evidence from Two Experiments
Books
September 2023

Propaganda in Autocracies

Author(s)
cover link Propaganda in Autocracies
Journal Articles
June 2023

Broadcasting Out-Group Repression to the In-Group: Evidence From China

Author(s)
cover link Broadcasting Out-Group Repression to the In-Group: Evidence From China

In The News

Book award winners
News

CDDRL Scholars Celebrated for Exceptional Contributions to Political Science Literature

Anna Grzymala-Busse's book "Sacred Foundations" has been awarded the American Political Science Association's J. David Greenstone Award and the Hubert Morken Best Book in Religion and Politics Award. Erin Baggott Carter and Brett Carter's book "Propaganda in Autocracies" has won the Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award from the International Journal of Press/Politics.
cover link CDDRL Scholars Celebrated for Exceptional Contributions to Political Science Literature
Brett Carter and Erin Baggot Carter present their new book during CDDRL's Fall 2023 Research Seminar Series
News

CDDRL Affiliated Scholars Build the World’s Largest Autocratic Propaganda Dataset

Erin Baggot Carter and Brett Carter discuss their new book in the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s weekly research seminar.
cover link CDDRL Affiliated Scholars Build the World’s Largest Autocratic Propaganda Dataset