Alexander Lee Harkness Hall 333, Rochester, NY 14627-0146
[email protected] Professional University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 2014 – Present Assistant Professor of Political Science Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 2013 – 2014 Post-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law Education Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 2007 – 2013 Ph.D. in Political Science Research interests: The Political Economy of Developing Countries, Terrorism, Colonialism, South Asia. Committee Members: David Laitin (Chairman), Stephen Haber, Saumitra Jha, James Fearon, Thomas Blom Hansen Yale University, New Haven, CT 2002 – 2006 B.A. Cum Laude in History and Political Science with distinction in both majors Research Peer Reviewed Publications: “Comparing British and French Colonial Legacies: A Discontinuity Analysis of Cameroon” (With Kenneth Schultz) Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2012, 7: 1–46. See blog discussion at Aidwatchers and Foreign Policy. “Who Becomes a Terrorist?: Poverty, Education, and the Origins of Political Violence.” World Politics, 2011, 63: 203-245. Book Project: “The Four Indias: The Social Origins of Underdevelopment in the Post-Colonial World” This project examines why some regions of India have dramatically different development policies from others, despite very similar formal institutions. It develops a typology of Indian regions, showing that they are divided not between “good performers” and “bad performers” but between different sets of policy goals. It shows that this variation is a product of the relative distribution of three important sources of social power—Land, education and group numbers—with groups that benefit from multiple sources of inequality being able to influence policy to favor their group.