David's research focuses on the comparative relationship between religion and democracy, with special attention to the role of religion in democratic backsliding. David is currently finalizing his third book (co-authored with Steven Brooke, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press), which traces the role of grassroots religious institutions in protecting local communities from violence associated with Rodrigo Duterte’s “drug war” in the Philippines. His research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council, APSA Centennial Center, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Notre Dame’s Global Religion Research Initiative, and the University of Gothenburg’s Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD).