Isabela Mares

Isabela Mares is the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and the Director of the European Union Center at Yale. She specializes in the comparative politics of Europe. Professor Mares has written extensively on labor market and social policy reforms, the political economy of taxation, electoral clientelism, reforms limiting electoral corruption. Her current research examines the political responses to antiparliamentarism in both contemporary and historical settings.

Professor Mares is the author of five books. These include The Politics of Social Risk: Business and Welfare State Development (New York: Cambridge University Press 2003), Taxation, Wage Bargaining and Unemployment (New York: Cambridge University Press 2006), From Open Secrets to Secret Voting (New York: Cambridge University Press 2015), Conditionality and Coercion: Electoral clientelism in Eastern Europe (co-authored with Lauren Young, Oxford University Press 2018) and Protecting the Ballot: How First Wave Democracies Ended Electoral Corruption (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2022).

The Politics of Social Risk was awarded the Gregory Luebbert best book in comparative politics award by the American Political Science Association and the best book in European Politics by the Council for European Studies. Conditionality and Coercion was awarded the William Riker award for Best Book in Political Economy by the American Political Science Association, the Best book in European Politics and was a runner up for the Gregory Luebbert Award. Her articles have been awarded best prizes by the APSA sections on Comparative Politics, Representation and Electoral Systems and History and Politics, among others. Professor Mares is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the Simon Guggenheim Foundation.