Aila M. Matanock

Aila Matanock is an assistant professor of political science at UC Berkeley. Her research addresses the ways in which international actors engage in conflicted and weak states, suggesting that mechanisms not requiring forceful intervention may sometimes be effective in these contexts. She uses case studies, survey experiments, and cross-national data in this work.

Matanock has conducted fieldwork in Colombia, Central America, the Pacific, and elsewhere. She has received funding for these projects from many sources, including the National Science Foundation, the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism, and the Center for Global Development. Her book, Electing Peace: Credibly Transitioning from Civil Conflict to Political Participation, is forthcoming at Cambridge University Press. It is based on her dissertation research at Stanford University, which won the 2013 Helen Dwight Reid award from the American Political Science Association.

Matanock worked at the RAND Corporation before graduate school, and she has held fellowships at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UCSD since. She received her PhD in political science from Stanford University and her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University.