Kai M. Thaler is Assistant Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research examines civil conflict, political violence and security, state-building, democracy and authoritarianism, especially in Africa and Latin America. His book When Rebels Win, which shows wartime ideology’s importance in shaping state-building by victorious rebels, is out in December from Cornell University Press, and his work has been published in journals including Comparative Politics, the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of Politics, Security Studies, and World Development.