Meet the Faculty

Meet the faculty who prepare regional experts to make a global impact.

Department Chair

Keith Darden Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Politics, Governance & Economics SIS | Politics, Governance & Economics

Research interests

  • Politics of Eurasia
  • Insurgency

Department Director of Graduate Studies

Research interests

  • Global integration on local labor markets
  • Information transfer in trade 
  • Labor institutions

Core Faculty

Research interests

  • Political misinformation
  • Comparative political economy

Research interests

  • Comparative political economy
  • Comparative European politics

Research interests

  • Community resilience
  • Transitional organized crime
  • Violent conflicts

Research interests

  • Democracy in Latin America
  • Subnational politics
  • Institutional integrity and accountability

Research interests

  • Social movements
  • Grassroots networks in the Middle East

Research interests

  • Quality of political institutions
  • Decentralization
  • Politics of development in Africa

Research interests

  • Comparative democratization
  • Political institutions and economic development
  • Authoritarianism in Africa

Research interests

  • Democracy, dictatorship and resistance
  • Racial and ethnic discrimination
  • Europe, the US, and Latin America

Research interests

  • Politics of the Middle East
  • Authoriarianism, protest and repression
  • Research methods

Research interests

  • Elite power struggles
  • Civil-military relations
  • Grand strategy

Research interests

  • Liberal constitutionalism in the Middle East
  • Race and gender in international law

Research interests

  • Comparative politics, public policy & administration, European studies
  • The politics of gender in Central Eastern Europe.
  • Gender equality activists

Research interests

  • Comparative historical sociology
  • Contentious politics
  • Political networks

Research interests

  • Comparative politics of East Asia
  • Strategies of great powers in the Asia-Pacific

Affiliated Faculty

Pek Koon Heng-Blackburn Assistant Prof Emerita