Strom Thacker

Professor, International Relations and Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences [Hariri Steering Committee, 2012–present]

Strom Thacker’s research and teaching focus broadly on questions of political economy, governance and development, with a regional focus on Mexico and Latin America. His books include Big Business, the State, and Free Trade: Constructing Coalitions in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2000), A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance (with John Gerring, Cambridge University Press, 2008), and Democracy and Development: A Historical Perspective (with John Gerring, in process). He is also working on a project on the politics of human development. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science, Business and Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Global Public Health, International Organization, the Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, the Journal of Politics, Social Science & Medicine, and World Politics. He also has an ongoing interest in the politics of foreign aid and lending, and the International Monetary Fund.

Thacker is a Faculty Affiliate of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and a Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. He has been a Visiting Scholar in Political Science at MIT, Visiting Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University, a Susan Louise Dyer Peace Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a Fulbright Scholar. He has also received research grants funded by the World Bank, BU’s SPRInG program, BU’s Pardee Center, the Mellon Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, and the University of North Carolina. He taught at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) before his appointment to Boston University.