Dan Slater

Dan Slater (Ph.D. Emory, 2005) is the James Orin Murfin Professor of Political Science and Director for the Center of Emerging Democracies (@umichDemocracy) at the International Institute. He specializes in the politics and history of dictatorship and democracy, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia. He came to Michigan in 2017 after twelve years on the faculty at the University of Chicago, where he served as founding Director of the Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR), Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, and associate member in the Department of Sociology. His book examining how divergent historical patterns of contentious politics have shaped variation in state power and authoritarian durability in seven Southeast Asian countries, entitled Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia, was published in the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series in 2010. His latest book is entitled From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia (Princeton University Press, 2022), which explores why rapid economic development has led to democratization in some Asian countries but not others. His published articles can be found in disciplinary journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Democratization, Government & Opposition, International Organization, Perspectives on Politics, Social Science History, Studies in Comparative International Development, and World Politics, as well as Asia-oriented journals such as Critical Asian Studies, Indonesia, Journal of East Asian Studies, South East Asia Research, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, and TRANS. Before commencing his doctoral studies at Emory in 1999 he received a B.A. in International Relations and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. in International Studies from the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, and spent ten months as a Fulbright scholar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998. Beyond Southeast Asia, he has done international consulting work on challenges related to democratization and demilitarization in cases such as Ethiopia, Fiji, and Pakistan. He has recently worked as a consultant and nonresident fellow with international policy organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Freedom House, OECD, and World Bank. He also currently serves as co-editor of the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics book series (with Anna Grzymala-Busse), Emerging Democracies book series at U-M Press (with Pauline Jones), and the Democracy & Autocracy newsletter of the eponymous APSA organized section (with Robert Mickey).