His main area of research is international relations, with a focus on the causes and consequences of interstate conflict. His main research project concerns the interplay of resource extraction and internal conflict in territory that is governed by outside forces, such as in colonial endeavors and military occupations. He is particularly interested in unpacking the logic of "divide and rule" to determine when, if ever, internal unrest allows an outside force to extract more economic output from a piece of territory. He is also working on a set of papers about how diplomatic communication can (and cannot) affect the outbreak of war. Additionally, he has carried out methodological research on missing data and the estimation of game-theoretic models, and he is the author of multiple open-source software packages.