Rachel Beatty Riedl is the Peggy J. Koenig ’78 Director of the Center on Global Democracy in the Brooks School of Public Policy, and a Professor in the Brooks School and Department of Government at Cornell University.

Her research expertise is on democracy and authoritarianism globally, and particularly across Africa. She focuses on questions of participation, institutions, political parties, and local governance. She recently led the USAID’s Democracy, Rights and Governance learning agenda “Opening Democratic Spaces” research report. Riedl is also a member of the Open Society University Network’s Forum on Democracy and Development. Riedl is the author of the award-winning Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa and co-author of From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa.
She has been a visiting fellow at the Yale Program on Democracy, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. She previously served as the John S. Knight Professor and Director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell. She is a full member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the Editorial Committee of World Politics, and co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Elements series Politics of Development.

Riedl served as the President of the Scientific Committee of the Institute of Advanced Studies (France), and as Chair of the Democracy and Autocracy section of the American Political Science Association. She has conducted policy analysis for USAID, the World Bank, the State Department, the Carter Center, and other organizations on issues pertaining to governance reforms, elections, democratic representation, and identity politics.

She is host of the podcast Democracy Dialogues, bringing cutting-edge research on democracy citizens who will shape the future of democratic governance. PhD Princeton University.

Rachel Beatty Riedl's current research project is a global analysis of how democracies experiencing erosion from within resist such attacks and defend, bolster, and even expand democracy for the future.

Cornell University, College, Master, PhD. 
Course Titles: Democracy and Public Policy; African Politics; Global Studies Gateway

Books:

How Democracies Resist (provisional title). Book manuscript in progress. With co-author Paul Friesen.

Global Challenges to Democracy: Comparative Perspectives on Backsliding, Autocracy, and Resilience. Editor, with Valerie Bunce, Kenneth Roberts, and Thomas Pepinsky. 2025. Cambridge University Press.

From Pews to Politics: How Religious Ideas Can Influence Modes of Political Engagement in Africa and Beyond. With co-author Gwyneth McClendon. 2019. Cambridge University Press.

Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa. 2014. Cambridge University Press.

Articles:

“Neoliberalism and the Third Wave” 2025. Journal of Democracy.

“Democratic Backsliding: How It Happens and How It Can Be Countered” 2025. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science. With Jennifer McCoy, Kenneth Roberts, and Murat Somer.

“Democracy Wins in Senegal” 2024. Journal of Democracy.

“Democratic Backsliding, Resilience, and Resistance” 2024. World Politics. With Paul Friesen, Jennifer McCoy and Kenneth Roberts.

“Using Sermons to Study Religions’ Influence on Political Behavior” with Gwyneth McClendon. Comparative Political Studies. 2021.

“Authoritarian-Led Democratization” with Dan Slater, Joe Wong, and Daniel Ziblatt. Annual Review of Political Science. 2020.

“Religion as Stimulant of Political Participation: Evidence from an Experiment in Nairobi, Kenya” with Gwyneth McClendon. Journal of Politics 2015 77(4).

“Party Systems and Decentralization in Africa” with J. Tyler Dickovick. Studies in Comparative International Development. 2014 49(3):321-342.