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Rachel Gisselquist

Research Director, Index of African Governance

Contact:
Telephone: 617-495-2550
Fax: 617-491-8588
Email: rachel_gisselquist@ksg.harvard.edu

Experience

Dr. Rachel Gisselquist, a political scientist, specializes in comparative politics, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Her research is on governance, ethnic and identity politics, democratization, and elections. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007), an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a BSFS from Georgetown University.

Since 2007, Dr. Gisselquist has been the Research Director of the Index of African Governance with the Program on Intrastate Conflict.  The Index of African Governance, authored by Robert I. Rotberg and Gisselquist, assesses governance in all forty-eight sub-Saharan African countries.  It is based on fifty-seven indicators in five categories: Safety and Security; the Rule of Law, Transparency, and Corruption; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development.  The Index has been featured in numerous publications, including the Economist, the Africa Report, the Independent, and Oxford Analytica.  The first Index was released in September 2007.  The 2008 Index and report are available at
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18541/strengthening_african_governance.html.

Dr. Gisselquist's dissertation, "Ethnic Leftists, Populist Ethnics: The New Politics of Identity," focuses on changes in the relative salience of ethnicity and class in electoral politics in Bolivia and Latin America more generally. It provides new measurement of these changes, and argues, contrary to the much of the literature, that the importance of ethnicity in electoral politics is not explained by ethnic diversity or fractionalization, institutions, or elite manipulation.  Rather, it is the relationship between ethnic and other identity groups that is key in understanding how and when politicians will successfully play the ethnic card. The manuscript is under revision. Other recent publications include "Democratic Transition and Democratic Survival in Benin," Democratization (August 2008).  

Dr. Gisselquist's research has been supported by several grants and fellowships, including a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation. During 2005-2007, she was a Pre-doctoral Fellow of the International Security and Intrastate Conflict Programs of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.