Description:

Please join the Center for International and Area Studies for our Global Lunchbox series, a weekly lunchtime colloquium designed as an informal conversation.

Speaker:

Jordan Gans-Morse is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern and coordinates the Program in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies (REEES). His research focuses on corruption, the rule of law, property rights, and political and economic transitions. Although his primary regional expertise is the former Soviet Union, he also has conducted research on Central-Eastern Europe and Latin America.

He is the author of Property Rights in Post-Soviet Russia: Violence, Corruption, and Demand for Law (Cambridge University Press). He is currently working on a new book manuscript, tentatively titled "To Steal or to Serve? Motivations for Public Service in Corrupt States." Drawing on evidence from Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia, the study examines the roots of systemic corruption and investigates strategies for curtailing the predatory states that plague citizens throughout much of the world. During the 2016-2017 academic year, Gans-Morse served as a Fulbright Scholar teaching and conducting research in Ukraine.

Prior to his doctoral studies, he was a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, a recipient of two US State Department fellowships to Moscow, and a Resident Director for the American Councils for International Education's student exchange program in St. Petersburg, Russia.