Associate Professor
Pick Hall 417
773 702 8056
Michael Albertus is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His main research focus is on the political conditions under which governments implement egalitarian reforms. His first book, Autocracy and Redistribution: The Politics of Land Reform, published by Cambridge University Press, examines why and when land reform programs are implemented. It won the 2016 Luebbert Award for best book published in comparative politics in 2014 or 2015. Other research interests include political regime transitions and stability, politics under dictatorship, clientelism, and civil conflict. Albertus' work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, International Studies Quarterly, World Development, and elsewhere.
Selected Publications:
- “Land Reform and Civil Conflict: Theory and Evidence from Peru,” American Journal of Political Science (2020).
- Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
- “Unlikely Democrats: Economic Elite Uncertainty Under Dictatorship and Support for Democratization,” with Victor Gay. American Journal of Political Science (2017).
- Autocracy and Redistribution: The Politics of Land Reform. 2015. New York: Cambridge University Press.
