Thad Dunning is Robson Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley and directs the Center on the Politics of Development. He studies comparative politics, political economy, and research methods.
His current work on ethnic and other cleavages draws on field and natural experiments and qualitative fieldwork in Latin America, India, and Africa. Dunning has written on a range of methodological topics, including causal inference, multi-method research, and cumulative learning. He chaired the inaugural project of the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) group’s Metaketa Initiative, which aims to achieve greater cumulation of findings from experimental research on international development, political accountability, and related topics. This initiative led to a co-authored volume published as Information, Accountability, and Cumulative Learning: Lessons from Metaketa I, which won a Best Book Award from the Experimental Research Section of APSA, as well as an article in Science Advances. Dunning is the author or co-author of several other award-winning books, including Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism: The Puzzle of Distributive Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2013), which won the Luebbert Prize for best book in comparative politics and the Best Book Award of APSA’s Comparative Democratization Section; Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences: A Design-Based Approach (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which won the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Experiments Section); and Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes (2008, Cambridge University Press), which won the Best Book Award from APSA’s Comparative Democratization Section). Dunning’s articles have appeared in several journals, including the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Political Analysis. He received a Ph.D. in political science and an M.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley (2006). Before returning to Berkeley, he was Professor of Political Science at Yale University.