Oil Wealth as an Obstacle to Peace and Democracy - Michael Ross

The Pacific Basin Research Center Distinguished Speakers Series Presents

Michael Ross

“Oil Wealth as an Obstacle to Peace and Democracy”

Tuesday, 31 March 2009 5:00 p.m.
Pauling 216

Michael Ross received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University in 1996. From 1996 to 2001 he was an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He also spent the 2000 calendar year as a Visiting Scholar at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and Jakarta, Indonesia. He is now an Associate Professor of Political Science, and Chairman of the International Development Studies Interdepartmental Program at UCLA. His research deals with political economy, democratization, natural resources, and poverty in the developing world - particularly (but not exclusively) in Southeast Asia. His main project is a book on the “resource curse” that explains why countries with lots of natural resource wealth tend to do worse than countries with resource wealth. His most recent publication is “Timber Booms and Institutional Breakdown in Southeast Asia.”