Profile

James McGuire is Professor and Chair in the Department of Government at Wesleyan University. He received his BA from Swarthmore and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in comparative politics, with a particular focus on democracy, social welfare policies, and public health in Latin America and East Asia. He is a member of the Latin American Studies Program and a recipient of Wesleyan’s Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

McGuire is the author of Peronism without Perón (Stanford, 1997) and of articles and chapters on Argentine politics and labor unions; Latin American social policies; transitions from authoritarianism; and economic growth, income inequality, and mortality decline, particularly in East Asia and Latin America. His book Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge, 2010) explores why some countries do better than others at raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. It was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2010 and won the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research (2011).