MIT Political Science

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Ben Ross Schneider is Ford International Professor of Political Science. Prior to joining the department in 2008, Schneider taught at Princeton University and Northwestern University (where he also served as chair 2003-05). Schneider's research has been supported by the Fulbright Program, the Social Science Research Council, the Searle Foundation, the Kellogg Institute, the Heinz Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, and the Inter-American Foundation. Schneider has a strong interest in contemporary policy debates and has consulted for the Ford Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the Global Development Network, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Research (UNRISD), and the governments of Brazil and the United States. At MIT, Schneider co-directs the MIT Brazil Program (MISTI), the MIT Chile Program (MISTI), the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Institutions and Development (IWID), and the Harvard-MIT Workshop on the Political Economy of Development in Brazil.

Biography  |  Research  |  Publications  |  Subjects

Research

Professor Schneider's teaching and research interests fall within the general fields of comparative politics, political economy, and Latin American politics. His books include Politics within the State: Elite Bureaucrats and Industrial Policy in Authoritarian Brazil (Pittsburgh University Press, 1991), Business and the State in Developing Countries (Cornell University Press, 1997), Reinventing Leviathan: The Politics of Administrative Reform in Developing Countries (North-South/Lynne Rienner, 2003), and Business Politics and the State in 20th Century Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2004). He also has published on topics such as economic reform, democratization, technocracy, administrative reform, education policy, the developmental state, business groups, and comparative bureaucracy. Schneider's current research examines the distinct institutional foundations of capitalist development in Latin America with particular attention to diversified business groups, foreign investment, human capital, labor markets, and commodity-led growth.

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Recent Publications

"Complementarities and Continuities in the Political Economy of Labor Markets in Latin America." (with Sebastian Karcher). Socio-Economic Review, 8, no. 4 (October 2010), pp. 623-51. (pdf)

"Hierarchical Market Economies and Varieties of Capitalism in Latin America." Journal of Latin American Studies, 41 (August 2009), pp. 553-75.(pdf)

"A Comparative Political Economy of Diversified Business Groups, or How States Organize Big Business." Review of International Political Economy 16, no. 2 (May 2009), pp. 178-201.(pdf)

"Inequality in Developed Countries and Latin America: Coordinated, Liberal, and Hierarchical Systems." (with David Soskice). Economy and Society 38, no. 1 (February 2009), pp. 17-52.(pdf)

"Economic Liberalization and Corporate Governance: The Resilience of Business Groups in Latin America." Comparative Politics, 40, no. 4 (July 2008), pp. 379-98.(abstract)

Business Politics and the State in 20th Century Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.(pdf)

Biography  |  Research  |  Publications  |  Subjects

Subjects

17.178 Institutional Foundations of Capitalist Development
17.588 Field Seminar in Comparative Politics (Syllabus)