Susan Stokes is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor and Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy.

Her research and teaching interests include democratic theory and how democracy functions in developing societies, distributive politics, and comparative political behavior.

Her single and co-authored books include Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (2001), Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism: The Puzzle of Distributive Politics (2013), and Why Bother? Rethinking Participation in Elections and Protests (2019). 

She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.