Rachel Beatty Riedl’s research interests include institutional development in new democracies, local governance and decentralization policy, authoritarian regime legacies, and religion and politics, with a regional focus in Africa. In addition to her affiliation with Brooks, she is the Einaudi Center’s director and John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and professor in the Department of Government.

Professor Beatty Riedl has also been a visiting fellow at the Yale Program on Democracy, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. She was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served as Chair of the Democracy and Autocracy section of the American Political Science Association.  She is co-host of the podcast Ufahamu Africa, featuring weekly episodes of news highlights and interviews about life and politics on the African continent.

Professor Beatty Riedl is President of the Scientific Council at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Nantes), an editorial committee member at World Politics, and co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Elements series Politics of Development. She has conducted policy analysis for USAID, the World Bank, the State Department, the Carter Center, and other organizations on issues pertaining to governance reforms, elections, democratic representation, and identity politics.

Professor Beatty Riedl is the author of the award-winning Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa and co-author of From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa .  

Professor Beatty Riedl holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University.