Note: As of summer 2022, I will be an Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. This website is no longer being updated. My new email is: nlnathan@mit.edu. My new website can be found here. Thanks!
I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and a Faculty Associate at the University’s Center for Political Studies and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.
My research focuses on electoral politics and political economy in new democracies in Africa. My first book, Electoral Politics and Africa’s Urban Transition: Class and Ethnicity in Ghana (Cambridge University Press, 2019), examines electoral competition in urban Africa. My new book, The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), explores the long-run legacies of state-building in the rural periphery.
My research has also been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and World Politics. I completed my PhD at Harvard University’s Department of Government in 2016. For more on my research, please see Papers and Manuscripts, as well as my CV. I’m tweeting at @noahlnathan.
