Fiona Shen Bayh

Assistant Professor
Government & Data Science
William & Mary
fshenbayh[at]wm.edu

I am an Assistant Professor of Government and Data Science at William & Mary and an affiliated researcher at the University of Bergen. I earned my PhD and MA in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and my BA in Economics from Vassar College. From 2018-2019, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan. 
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​My research focuses on the role that law and courts play in defending and upholding autocratic rule. My book project examines why autocrats use courts to repress and the ramifications of such strategies on autocratic survival in the Global South. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, my work draws on a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative analyses and leverages a variety of data science tools.

​My research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been published in World Politics.