Bio

CV

Rachel Beatty Riedl is the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and Director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University.  She is a faculty member in the Department of Government and the Brooks School of Public Policy. Riedl is an expert on democracy and authoritarianism, institutional development, local governance and decentralization policy, and religion and politics, with a regional focus in Africa.

Riedl is the author of the award-winning Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa and co-author of From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa (with Gwyneth McClendon). She is the President of the Scientific Council at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Nantes), an editorial committee member at World Politics, and co-editor of the Elements series Politics of Development (Cambridge University Press). She has held fellowships at Yale University, Notre Dame, Princeton University, and has conducted policy analysis with USAID, the World Bank, State Dept, Carter Center, US Institute of Peace, and other organizations on issues pertaining to governance reforms, elections, democratic representation, and identity politics. She is a full member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Steering Committee member of the Open Society University Network Forum on Democracy and Development, and served as Chair of the Democracy and Autocracy section of the American Political Science Association.  She is co-host of the podcast Ufahamu Africa, about life and politics on the African continent. She holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University.