Phone: 301.405.6354
Office: 2117E Chincoteague Hall
Email: mccauley at umd•edu
John McCauley is Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University
of Maryland. He is also a research affiliate in the Center for International Development and Conflict Management. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University
of California, Los Angeles in 2010. He has a B.A. in Economics from the
College of William & Mary and an M.A. in International Relations from Yale
University.
His research interests include African politics, religious and ethnic politics,
informal institutions, field experiments in social science, and political boundaries.
Dr. McCauley's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. He spent the 2010 – 11 academic year as a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs at Harvard University, and he is currently working on a book manuscript on Religious and Ethnic Conflict in Africa.
Dr. McCauley has two ongoing research projects. The first, based on his
dissertation research, distinguishes religious conflict from ethnic or "tribal"
conflict in Africa. Relying on field experiments, case studies, and interviews
with elites in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, he asks why conflicts
in Africa are sometimes described in religious terms and at other times are described
according to ethnic differences. He is currently working on a book
manuscript for the project, in which he underscores both the cognitive effects
of religion and ethnicity at the individual level and the strategic concerns
of political leaders who manipulate those identities.
The second project is supported by a two-year research grant from the University
of Southern California and the John Templeton Foundation's Pentecostal and
Charismatic Research Initiative. It explores the growing influence
of Pentecostalism on African politics, by asking
whether Pentecostal leaders serve as the new "Big Men" so typical of patronage politics in the African setting. The
project will involve extensive fieldwork and experiments in Ghana and Nigeria.
Analysis of African Politics (grad)
Field Methods in Comparative Politics: Experiments, Surveys, and Analysis
(grad)
African Politics (undergrad)
The Politics of Developing Countries (undergrad)
Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective (undergrad)
