Alia Braley is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley. She specializes in the study of democratic resilience in the face of autocratic threat as well as civil resistance strategies in acute political conflict. The intervention featured in her recent publication, “The Subversion Dilemma: Why Voters Who Cherish Democracy Participate in Democratic Backsliding,” won first place in lowering anti-democratic attitudes and also significantly reduced partisan animosity and support for partisan violence in Stanford University’s massive experiment, the Strengthening Democracy Challenge.
She recently worked as the Director of Research and Education at the Albert Einstein Institution, as a visiting researcher at the MIT Media Lab Human Dynamics Group, and as a consultant at the World Bank Development Data Group. She has also served as a research assistant at the UC Berkeley Violence and Intervention Lab and the United States Institute of Peace Nonviolent Action Program.
She holds a Masters in Divinity from Harvard University, where her research focused on religion politics, and conflict. She presented the findings of her thesis on civil resistance strategies against ISIS at TEDx Salem.