I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a Faculty Affiliate at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. I received a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where I was a fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.

I study politics in the world's autocracies. My first book, Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief (Cambridge University Press), draws on the largest archive of state propaganda ever assembled – encompassing over eight million newspaper articles in six languages from nearly 60 countries around the world – to show how political institutions shape the propaganda strategies of repressive governments. It received the William Riker Prize for the Best Book in Political Economy, the International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award, Honorable Mention for the Gregory Luebbert Award for the Best Book in Comparative Politics, and Honorable Mention for the APSA Democracy & Autocracy Section's Best Book Award. 

My second book, Social Dictatorship: Ethnicity, Institutions, and Geopolitics in Post-Cold War Africa (R&R, Cambridge University Press), shows how the end of the Cold War brought new challenges and constraints that shaped politics in Africa's autocracies. 

My new book project, The Closing of African Politics, explains how recent geopolitical changes and elite-level networks have laid the foundation for a wave of power grabs and military coups that has reinforced Africa's autocracies and toppled many of its democracies.

My other work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs, among others.

My work has been featured by The New York Times, The Economist, The National Interest, NPR's Radio Lab, and the Hoover Institution's Defining Ideas series. I regularly contribute to a variety of online platforms, including the National Endowment for Democracy's Power 3.0 Project, African Arguments, Africa is a Country, and Political Violence at a Glance. I can be reached via email (blcarter@usc.edu, blcarter@stanford.edu). My Google Scholar profile is here.