Anya Stewart

Anya Stewart is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. Broadly, she aims to understand the calculus of state responses to domestic threats. Specifically, she focuses on the uses and abuses of martial law, a situation in which governments replace local civilian authority with military authority following an explicit declaration by the central government. In her dissertation, she puts forth a comprehensive definition of martial law, along with a measurement strategy and dataset. Additionally, she investigates the executive institutional arrangements that create the conditions favorable for using martial law as a security tool. She also explores how the use of martial law in conflict settings alters rebel behavior, arguing that martial law produces a shift from the targeting of traditional military infrastructure to the targeting of civilians and in a fashion that looks more like terrorism. Before beginning her Ph.D., Anya was the legislative and communications manager for the Personal Insurance Federation of California, a lobbying firm in Sacramento. She received her B.A. in political science with highest honors from UC Davis in 2016.