Center Affiliates

The multiple missions of the Cline Center for Democracy can only be achieved by the contributions of talented faculty.  In addition to its Research Fellows program the Cline Center has a number of faculty affiliates who make varied contributions that enrich its activities.  Succinct biographies of the Center’s initial set of faculty affiliates are reported below.

Todd Allee

Todd Allee is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois.  His research and teaching focus on issues related to international trade, international organizations, and international dispute resolution.  He is the author of The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century (with Paul Huth, Cambridge University Press, 2003) as well as several articles and book chapters on the escalation and settlement of territorial, trade, and investment disputes.  His current research focuses on the role of international trade and investment organizations in promoting cross-border trade and foreign direct investment.  He is currently completing a book manuscript on the dynamics of trade dispute resolution under the World Trade Organization’s legal dispute settlement mechanism.   

Scott Althaus

Scott Althaus (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1996) is an associate professor of Political Science who also has an appointment is in Speech Communication.  His research interests center on the communication processes that equip ordinary citizens to exercise popular sovereignty in democratic societies, as well as on the communication processes by which the opinions of these citizens are conveyed to government officials. Professor Althaus serves on the editorial boards of Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Politics, Political Communication, and Public Opinion Quarterly.  His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Communication Research, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Politics, PS:  Political Science & Politics, and Political Communication.  His book on the political uses of opinion surveys in democratic societies, Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics:  Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People (Cambridge University Press, 2003), was awarded a 2004 Goldsmith Book Prize by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and a 2004 David Easton Book Prize by the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association.  He was named a 2004-5 Beckman Associate by the UIUC Center for Advanced Studies, and a 2003-4 Helen Corley Petiti Scholar by the UIUC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Rajshree Agarwal

Rajshree Agarwal is the John Georges Professor of Technology Management and Strategy at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She received a Ph.D. in economics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research interests focus on the implications of entrepreneurship and innovation for industry and firm evolution. Her recent projects examine knowledge transfer through employee entrepreneurship/mobility, experience-based advantages in new product markets, and the influence of dynamic knowledge-based capabilities on firm performance. Rajshree has published articles in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, American Economic Review, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Industrial Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal and Review of Economics and Statistics. Her paper on employee entrepreneurship received the Best Paper Award for 2004 from the Academy of Management Journal, and her work on post exit knowledge diffusion received the Stephen Shrader Award at the 2005 Academy of Management Meetings. She is the editor of the SSRN Entrepreneurship and Economics Journal, and serves on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Strategic Management Journal and Strategic Organization. She has received research grants from the Kauffman Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Marketing Science Institute and the US Department of Agriculture.

William Bernhard

William Bernhard (Ph.D., Duke University, 1996) joined the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois in 1997. His research focuses on the political economy of industrial democracies. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, International Organization, Journal of Politics, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and Applied Economics. His most recent book is Democratic Processes and Financial Markets (with D. Leblang, Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Merle L. Bowen

Merle L. Bowen (Ph.D., University of Toronto) is Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies and Research Program, as well as the Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois.  She also holds zero-time appointments in International Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies.  Professor Bowen has been awarded fellowships from the Frederick Douglass Institute at Rochester University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Northwestern University.  At the University of Illinois, she has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study and the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society.  She is the recipient of several grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal.  Professor Bowen has served as a consultant to the Mozambique and Nordic Agricultural Program, the Swedish International Development Authority, and the Canadian International Development Research Center.  Her research and teaching interests include politics in Africa and the African Diaspora, agrarian and rural issues, race and ethnicity, and social movements and globalization.  She is the author of The State against the Peasantry: Rural Struggles in Colonial and Postcolonial Mozambique (University of Virginia Press, 2000), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.  Her current research project focuses on the state, land reform, and black rural communities in Mozambique and Brazil.

Damarys Canache

Damarys Canache (Ph. D. University of Pittsburgh, 1999) studies citizens and democracy.  Much of her research explores citizens’ political attitudes in fledgling democracies, particularly in Latin America. Questions considered in this research include how citizens conceive of democracy and the conditions under which people express support for alternates to democratic political systems. Professor Canache’s work also examines the political behavior of new citizens in established democracies, with specific focus on the impact of dual-national status on assimilation. She is the author of the book Venezuela: Public Opinion and Protest in a Fragile Democracy, coeditor of the book Reinventing Legitimacy: Democracy and Political Change in Venezuela, and coauthor of recent articles in the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Latin American Politics & Society and Public Opinion Quarterly.

José Antonio Cheibub

José Antonio Cheibub (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1994) is the Boeschenstein Scholar of Political Economy and Public Policy.  His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics, political economy and democratic institutions.  Currently he is working on three projects:  one that seeks to account for the adoption of mixed democratic constitutions (often referred to as "semi-presidential" constitutions), as well as their implications for democratic performance; second, a study of the "electoral connection" in proportional representation systems, focusing initially on Brazil; finally, a project that analyzes the relationship among economic performance, elections and alternation in power in different types of democratic regimes.  In addition to the work that has appeared in the form of books, he has published in several edited volumes and in journals such as American Political Science Review, World Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Politics and Society, Journal of Democracy and Studies in Comparative International Development.

Wendy K. Tam Cho

Wendy K. Tam Cho is Associate Professor with appointments in the Department of Political Science and the Department of Statistics and Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She received her BA in Political Science and Mathematics, her MA in Political Science and Statistics, and her Ph.D in Political Science, all from the University of California at Berkeley.  Her scholarly interests lie in the areas of political methodology, American politics, racial/ethnic politics, and computational solutions to social science problems.  Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, and Political Analysis, among others.  She currently serves on the American Political Science Association's Executive Council, and on the editorial boards of American Politics Research, the Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, PS: Political Science & Politics, Political Science Network, and State Politics and Policy Quarterly.  She is Associate Editor of Political Analysis, and has also served as Member-at-Large for the APSA Section, Society for Political Methodology, chair of the Methodology Section for several conferences, and as a member of the R.H. Durr Award Committee, the Harold Gosnell Award Committee, and the Warren Miller Prize Committee.

Xinyuan Dai

Xinyuan Dai (Ph.D., The University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is interested in global governance. Her research concerns include: 1) the design and the effect of international institutions and 2) the impact of domestic political institutions on international relations. She is the author of International Institutions and National Policies (Cambridge University Press). Her work has also appeared in American Political Science Review, World Politics, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Social Networks.

Paul F. Diehl

Paul F. Diehl is Henning Larsen Professor of Political Science and University Distinguished Teacher/Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He also serves as Director of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teaching Academy as well as Director of the Correlates of War Project, the largest data collection effort on international conflict in the world.  He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Michigan in 1983 and has held faculty positions at the University of Georgia and SUNY-Albany.  His recent books include The Scourge of War (University of Michigan Press, 2004), War and Peace in International Rivalry (University of Michigan Press, 2000), A Road Map to War: Territorial Dimensions of International Conflict (Vanderbilt University Press, 1999), The Dynamics of Enduring Rivalries (University of Illinois Press, 1998), International Peacekeeping (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), and Territorial Changes and International Conflict (Routledge, 1992).  He is the editor of eleven other books and the author of over one hundred articles on international security matters.  He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including those from the National Science Foundation, United States Institute of Peace, and the Lilly Foundation.  He was the 1998 recipient of the Karl Deutsch Award given by the International Studies Association to the leading young scholar on peace and conflict issues. He also received the LAS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the University of Illinois Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, as well as being a three time winner of the Clarence Berdahl Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Instruction.  He is past President of the Peace Science Society (International).  His areas of expertise include the causes of war, UN peacekeeping, and international law.

Zachary Elkins

Zachary Elkins is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He received his B.A. from Yale University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on issues of democracy, nationalism, and institutional reform, with an emphasis on Latin America. He is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Designed by Diffusion: Constitutional Reform in Developing Democracies which examines the design and diffusion of democratic institutions. His articles have appeared in journals such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and International Organization.  Professor Elkins is also co-director of the Comparative Constitutions Project at the Cline Center for Democracy at the University of Illinois.

Samantha Frost

Samantha Frost is a political theorist whose work invites us to reconsider some of the concepts fundamental to our understandings of democratic politics.  Drawing on the work of English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes as well as contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship on embodiment, social interaction, and complexity, Frost's work explores how an acknowledgment of our profound interdependence demands the reconceptualization of power, collective action, and the organization of political life.  Her current project, provisionally entitled Trust and Terror, extends this exploration to reconsider how trust, fear, time, and violence transfigure civic life and the possibility of democratic political practice.  Frost's work has appeared in the journals Political Theory and Theory and Event. Her book Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics is forthcoming with Stanford University Press (2008).  A collection of essays entitled The New Materialisms, edited by Frost and Diana Coole (University of London), will be published with Duke University Press (2008). 

Brian J. Gaines

Brian J. Gaines is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, and holds an appointment in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs.  His research focuses on elections and public opinion, and his work has appeared in more than a dozen journals.  Between February 2005 and January 2007, he ran marathons on all seven continents.

Thomas Ginsburg

Thomas Ginsburg is Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Illinois.  His research focuses on comparative and international law from an interdisciplinary perspective.  He holds B.A., J.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.  One of his books, Judicial Review in New Democracies, (Cambridge University Press, 2003) won the C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association for best book on law and courts in 2004, and he has authored or edited four other volumes.  Ginsburg serves as co-director of the Comparative Constitutions Project at the University of Illinois and has consulted with numerous international development agencies and foreign governments on legal and constitutional reform, most recently working in Montenegro, Tajikistan and with the Iraqi Constitutional Reform Commission. Before entering law teaching, he served as a legal advisor at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, The Hague, Netherlands. 

Donald E. Greco

Donald Greco is currently the Director of the Civic Leadership Program and an adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  From 2004-2007 he served as the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Governance at the U of I.  Professor Greco earned a bachelor degree with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; received a Juris Doctorate from Northwestern University School of Law; and holds a M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  From 1997-2004 he was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Political Science at Baylor University and the Director of the American Studies Program.  Dr. Greco co-founded the Oxford Study Abroad program at Baylor University and initiated that same program at the University of Illinois in 2005.In 2004 Dr. Greco was the recipient of the John Adams Fellowship awarded annually by the Institute for United States Studies at the University of London and as a result was an academic in resident at the University of London during the spring 2004 semester.  Prior to returning to academia in 1992 Professor Greco practiced law in various capacities that include: Assistant Attorney General in the California Attorney General’s Office, Appellate Division; Legal Counsel and Legislative Liaison for San Diego Gas & Electric Company; General Counsel and V.P. of Merrill Lynch Realty, Inc., Stamford, Connecticut.  Dr. Greco also spent some time in the private practice of law in Chicago and Newport Beach, California

Jude C. Hays

Jude C. Hays received his Ph.D. (2000) in political science from the University of Minnesota. Before coming to the University of Illinois, he was a professor in both the political science department and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan as well as a faculty associate at the Center for Political Studies in the Institute for Social Research.  His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, and he has published or forthcoming articles in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Political Analysis, European Union Politics, International Organization, World Politics, International Studies Quarterly, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.  His first book project, Globalization, Domestic Institutions, and the New Politics of Embedded Liberalism, is under review at both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses.  He has given invited lectures at Ohio State, Minnesota, Penn State, Duke, Yale, and Harvard.

Edward A. Kolodziej

Edward A. Kolodziej is research professor of political science emeritus and director of the Center for Global Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has written or edited over 120 professional articles and fourteen books on security and foreign policy including: The Uncommon Defense and Congress: 1945-63 (Ohio State University Press, 1966); French International Policy under De Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur (Cornell University Press, 1974); and Making and Marketing Arms: The French Experience and Its Implications for the International System (Princeton University Press, 1987); several books co-edited with Roger Kanet, The Limits of Soviet Power in the Developing World: Thermidor in the Revolutionary Struggle (Macmillan/Johns Hopkins University Press 1989); The Cold War as Cooperation: Superpower Cooperation in Regional Conflict Management (Macmillan, 1991); Coping with Conflict after the Cold War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and From Superpower to Besieged Global Power: Restoring Global Order after the Failure of the Bush Doctrine (University of Georgia Press, 2007); and an edited volume entitled A Force Profonde: The Power, Politics, and Promise of Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). His most recent publication is Security and International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2005), a critique of prevailing schools of security theory.  He is currently working on a theory of global governance.  Having lectured in over 40 countries, he will be a visiting professor of international relations at Gakuin University (Tokyo) and Hebrew University (Israel) in 2007.

James H. Kuklinski

James H. Kuklinski is Matthew T. McClure Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  His current research focuses on the relationship between the nature of the political environment and the quality of citizen decision-making.  He is writing a book-length manuscript on this subject.  His work has appeared in the leading disciplinary journals.  He is editor or coeditor of Information and Democratic Processes, Citizens and Politics:  Perspectives from Political Psychology, and Thinking about Political Psychology. 

Kris Miler

Kris Miler is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science.  Her research focuses on representation of constituents in democratic political systems, with a primary emphasis on the U.S. Congress.  Currently, Professor Miler is completing a book manuscript, The View from Capitol Hill: Constituency Representation in Congress, which examines legislative perceptions of their districts and the impact of these perceptions on legislative behavior in Congress.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Jeffery J. Mondak

Professor Mondak’s research examines how citizens relate to the political world, both in the United States and cross-nationally. Drawing on insights from the fields of sociology and psychology, Professor Mondak explores how, and how well, people perform the basic tasks of citizenship. Beneath this broad umbrella, Mondak’s research tackles a diverse array of questions regarding citizens and democracy. In Professor Mondak’s research on Congress and congressional elections, he and his collaborators study the bases of citizens’ evaluations of Congress and the factors that influence voting behavior in congressional elections. Professor Mondak’s research on politics and the psychology of individual differences seeks to illuminate the psychological foundations of citizens’ political actions. One of the central contemporary concerns regarding citizens and democracy involves the nature of civic discourse. Professor Mondak studies one dimension of this issue in his research on cross-cutting discourse in the American workplace. Professor Mondak’s most recent publications have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science and the Journal of Politics. In October, 2007, he is hosting the Illinois Conference on Congressional Elections, a conference sponsored by the Cline Center.

James D. Nowlan

James D. Nowlan is a Senior Fellow with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  A former member of the Illinois House as well as of several state agencies, Nowlan has written extensively about Illinois politics and government.  In 2005, he was named Educator of the Year by the University of Illinois Alumni Association.

Robert Pahre

Robert Pahre is Professor of Political Science and Director of the European Union Center at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.  He previously taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Rochester.  Professor Pahre is the author of The Politics of Trade Cooperation: The 'Agreeable Customs' of 1815-1914 (2008); Leading Questions: How Hegemony Affects the International Political Economy (1999); editor of Democratic Foreign Policy Making: Problems of Divided Government (2006), coauthor with Fiona McGillivray, Iain McLean, and Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey of International Trade and Political Institutions: Instituting Trade in the Long Nineteenth Century (2001), and with Mattei Dogan, coauthor of Creative Marginality: Innovation at the Intersection of Social Sciences (1990).  His research has appeared in academic journals and books in political science, economics, sociology, library science, linguistics, and the philosophy of science.

Stephen Parente

Stephen L. Parente is an associate professor of economics at the University of Illinois. Professorr Parente earned his B.A. in mathematics from the College of the Holy Cross in 1984 and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1990. Since receiving his Ph.D., he has taught at Georgetown University, Northeastern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Illinois. Dr. Parente’s research primarily seeks to understand why some countries are so much richer than others. He has written over 20 articles on this subject, many of which have appeared in the best journals in the profession such as The American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Journal of Economic Theory. He has also written a book on economic development and growth with Nobel Laureate Edward C. Prescott, which has been translated into French and Italian and is soon to be translated into Chinese. His work has been cited by journalists in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, Business Week, and The London Financial Times, and by government officials such as Singapore’s Minister of Manpower in policy speeches. He has served as an assistant editor of Economic Theory and is a member of the Society of Economic Dynamics and the American Economic Association.

Thomas Rudolph

Professor Rudolph (Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2001) joined the Department in 2001 and currently serves as Director of Graduate Studies. His research interests are concentrated in the areas of public opinion, political psychology, and political behavior.   He is the co-author of Expression vs. Equality:  The Politics of Campaign Finance Reform (Ohio State University Press).  His research has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, and numerous edited volumes.  Professor Rudolph has been awarded fellowships from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Election Studies and is a 2007 recipient of the Emerging Scholar Award, presented by the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association.

Steven T. Sonka

Steven Sonka is the Interim Vice Chancellor for Public Engagement at the University of Illinois. A professor of agricultural management, he was the first to hold the Soybean Industry Chair in Agricultural Strategy.   A co-founder of the Centrec Consulting Group, LLC, he was a partner there for more than 20 years.  His scholarship emphasizes strategic change and decision making.  An author or coauthor of over 200 publications, his international experiences include consulting and lecturing on every continent except Antarctica.

Tracy Sulkin

Tracy Sulkin (Ph.D., University of Washington, 2002) is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Speech Communication.  Her research interests include representation, legislative behavior, and congressional elections, with a particular focus on the linkages between legislators' experiences as candidates in campaigns and their behavior as policymakers in Congress.  She is the author of Issue Politics in Congress (Cambridge University Press), which won the 2006 Richard F. Fenno Prize, awarded for the best book on legislative studies published in 2005.  She has also been the recipient of APSA's Schattschneider Award and the Legislative Studies Section's CQ Press Award and Rosenthal Prize.  Her current project explores how representatives and senators make and keep campaign promises.