Taylor C. Boas
Taylor C. Boas (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) joins the Kellogg Institute for the 2009–10 academic year. In his project “Electoral Strategies, Campaign Consultants, and the Quality of Democracy in Post-Transition Countries,” Boas posits “success contagion”—that the first post-democratization politician whose victorious campaign is followed by a successful term as president establishes an electioneering model likely to endure. He plans to explore whether his theory, based on an analysis of Brazil, Peru, and Chile, applies to other third-wave democracies. He will also begin a study of the influence that political consultants, particularly those from Russia and the US, have exerted in the electoral campaigns of post-transition countries. In the spring, he will teach a political science course.
Boas has published articles in Studies in Comparative International Development, Journal of Theoretical Politics, and Latin American Research Review and coauthored Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003). In fall 2010, he will begin a new position as assistant professor of political science at Boston University.
