Professional Affiliation

Director, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University

Expert Bio

Merilee S. Grindle is the Edward S. Mason Professor of International Development, Emerita at the Kennedy School of Government. She is a specialist on the comparative analysis of policy making, implementation, and public management in developing countries, with particular reference to Latin America. She is the author of a number of books, including Jobs for the Boys: Patronage and the State in Comparative Perspective; Bureaucrats, Politicians,and Peasants in Mexico; State and Countryside; Searching for Rural Development, Challenging the State; Audacious Reforms; Despite the Odds; and Going Local. In addition, she has written numerous articles about policy management and the political economy of reform. She also is the editor of Politics and Policy Implementation in the Third World; Getting Good Government; and Proclaiming Revolution. She is co-author, with John Thomas, of Public Choices and Policy Change, which won an award as the best book in public policy in 1991. A political scientist with a PhD from MIT, Grindle is engaged in research on the political economy of public sector reform.