James D. Long and Victor Menaldo

James D. Long is an Associate Professor of Political Science and co-founder of the Political Economy Forum at the University of Washington. He is the host of the Forum’s podcast series, “Neither Free Nor Fair?” about election security and democracy in the 21st century. James is a faculty affiliate at the University of Washington’s Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (CSSS), Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA), African Studies Program, and Near and Middle East Studies Program; and UC-Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and Evidence in Governance & Politics (EGAP). Previously, James was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, dissertation fellow at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, a Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar at the US Institute of Peace, and a Fulbright Scholar. His research in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia focuses on elections in developing countries, including the determinants of voting behavior, the dynamics of electoral fraud, the impact of ICT and digital media on corruption monitoring, and the effects of civil war and insurgency on state-building. James mixes quantitative, experimental, and qualitative field research methods, including household surveys, exit polls, field experiments, randomized control trials/impact evaluation, election forensics, and ethnography. His research has been funded by the US Agency for International Development, National Science Foundation, Qualcomm, UCSD, Democracy International, World Vision, Development and Conflict Research, USIP, and Fulbright. His most recent work, the subject of a TedX@UW talk, examines ways that ICT and digital media can address problems of information and human welfare in developing countries, building multi-channel platforms that drive citizen engagement, reporting, and monitoring on matters related to peace-building, elections, government performance, corruption, and service provision. In 2010, he served as Democracy Internationalʼs Research Director for their Election Observation mission for Afghanistan and has observed elections in South Africa (2014), Kenya (2013, 2007), Egypt (2011), Uganda (2011), Afghanistan (2014, 2010, 2009), and Ghana (2008). James received a PhD in Political Science from UC San Diego, an MSc (with Merit) in African Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and BA (High Honors) in International Relations and History from the College of William & Mary. Victor Menaldo (Ph.D., Stanford University, 2009) is a professor of Political Science and is affiliated with the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (CSSS), Near and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Center for Environmental Politics. He co-founded and co-leads the UW Political Economy Forum (along with James Long and Rachel Heath). He specializes in comparative politics and political economy. Menaldo has published articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Annual Review of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, World Politics, Comparative Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Economics & Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Policy Sciences, Business & Politics, among several other places. His first book, “The Institutions Curse,” is published by Cambridge University Press (2016). Menaldo's second book, "Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy" (with Mike Albertus), is also with Cambridge University Press (2018). Menaldo is interested in the political economy of property rights, industrialization, innovation, liberal democracy, and development and enjoys sharing his insights with policymakers, pundits, and the general public; he has published numerous Op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post (Monkey Cage), USA Today, Seattle Times, Forbes, Foreign Policy, Areo, and Inside Higher Ed. He is currently writing a book on the political economy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.