Manuel Cabal
I am a Teaching Fellow in the Division of Social Sciences and a graduate preceptor in the Committee on International Relations (CIR) of the University of Chicago, where I received my PhD in Political Science.
I specialize in comparative politics with a regional focus on Latin America. My research interests are in state-building, authoritarianism, and the political economy of development. Methodologically, I combine quantitative data analysis with comparative-historical approaches.
My current research opens the black box of policy-making under authoritarianism, asking why dictators sometimes provide public goods that foster economic development. I particularly study the massive expansion of primary education after the Mexican Revolution and the geographic patterns of schooling supply. Please, see more details on my research site.
I have experience teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels. I have taught introductory research methods in the college, as well as courses in comparative politics and public policy. In the MA programs of UChicago, I teach courses on Comparative State-Building and Latin American Political Development. Please, visit my teaching site for more details.
I hold a BA (Licenciatura) in Political Science from Instituto Tecnológico Autonómo de México (ITAM), and an MA from the University of Chicago. Before arriving in Chicago, I worked for the Mexican Federal Government as a policy analyst and a speechwriter.