Benjamin Smith
Associate Professor
Associate Chair
Ph.D., University of Washington, 2002
Email:bbsmith@ufl.edu
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Benjamin Smith, Associate Professor (Ph.D. U. Washington 2002) teaches undergraduate courses in comparative and Asian politics, ethnicity and nationalism, post-conflict peace building and the politics of modernity, and graduate courses on ethnicity and nationalism and research design. His first book, Hard Times in the Land of Plenty: Oil Politics in Iran and Indonesia, was published in 2007 Cornell University Press. Smith's research has been published in World Politics, the American Journal of Political Science, Studies in Comparative International Development, the Journal of International Affairs, and other journals and edited volumes. From 2002 to 2004, he was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.
His research focuses on separatist conflicts, regime change and democratization, and on corruption and economic development. Smith is currently working on a book exploring the long-term factors that shape the success of separatist movements, as well as several article-length projects on taxation and democratic breakdown (with Dan Slater), ethnic riots and interethnic relations in Southeast Asia (with Rizal Panggabean), and corruption and economic growth (with Leann Brown, Sarah Howland and Matthew Schwarz).
