Meet New Faculty: Daniel Corstange

After obtaining his PhD in political science in 2008, Daniel Corstange taught at Notre Dame and Maryland. He has published prolifically in multiple journals, and his manuscript Ethnic Clientelism in the Middle East is currently in preparation.

What do you study?

Broadly, I study ethnic politics and clientelism, with a regional emphasis on the Middle East. I also do some methodology work on public-opinion surveys, especially on how to ask sensitive questions and and still get truthful responses.

What do you teach?

I teach classes on ethnic politics, political development, and research methods. This upcoming year, I am teaching a course at SIPA on the politics of state-building in the developing world.

What do you consider today’s most pressing global issue?

I suppose I could pick an issue from the Middle East, which is my own bailiwick. If so, I might pick the consolidation of elections and the peaceful turnover of power. When I'm not feeling parochial, however, I suspect that the efforts to stave off a meltdown in the Euro zone are more immediately pressing.

What professional achievement are you most proud of?

This will probably sound trivial, but I embed a lot of experiments in the public-opinion surveys I conduct in the Arab world. I get an outsized thrill every time one of them works and teaches me something about the society I'm studying -- whether about vote buying, foreign intervention, or even trust in surveys themselves.

Why did you choose to come to SIPA?

I liked the fact that it offered the opportunity to move back and forth between my academic interests and my applied interests in development. The fact that SIPA brings in so many interesting characters doesn't hurt, either.