Nicholas is a DPhil candidate researching the differences in legislative debates between democratic, authoritarian, and backsliding regimes. He focuses on the Russian Duma (1996-2021) as a case study, examining the development of formal and informal mechanisms that restrict or facilitate floor time, as well as the growing dissimilarity in speechmaking incentives between government and opposition and between leaders and backbenchers.

Research

His primary research interests include:

I am currently on leave from my British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship to spend the 2025–2026 academic year at the University of Notre Dame, while remaining an Associate Member of DPIR and a Research Fellow at Keble College. My work sits at the intersection of (sub)national regime change studies, historical political economy, and institutional design. My BA project uses mixed methods and leverages evidence from Latin America to comparatively explore how and why taxes, social policies, and market regulations vary inside countries.