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Lauren Prather

Associate Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy
UC San Diego

Lauren Prather is an Associate Professor of international relations at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. Her work focuses on the domestic determinants of foreign policy, U.S. foreign policy, democracy promotion and democratization, Middle East politics, and experimental methods. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, the Europe Center, and the Laboratory for the Study of American Values at Stanford University.

Prather’s work has or will appear in Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies and Election Law Journal. She also has written in The Monkey Cage and An Africanist Perspective and been featured by the Center for Global Development, Chris Blattman’s blog, ThinkProgress and The World Bank Development Impact blog. Order her new book with Sarah Sunn Bush, Monitors and Meddlers: How Foreign Actors Influence Local Trust in Elections, where they analyze how international election observers can affect elections, and what that means for global democracy.

Expertise & Interests

  • International relations
  • Comparative politics
  • Democracy promotion
  • Democratization
  • International aid
  • Migration
  • Experimental methods
lprather@ucsd.edu