Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita is the Dean and Sydney Stein Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and a Faculty Associate in the University of Chicago Department of Political Science.

A leading political scientist whose research applies game theoretic models to the study of conflict, political violence, national security, and electoral politics, he has also written extensively on methodological issues in the social sciences. He writes and advises leaders in the public and private sectors on both national security matters and issues at the intersection of technology and society.

Prior to assuming the role of dean in 2024, Bueno de Mesquita served as Interim Dean and Deputy Dean of the Harris School since 2011, as chair of the Pearson Institute Advisory Council, and as co-chair of Harris’ Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board. He is a member of the board of directors of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. Additionally, he served on the steering committee responsible for establishing the PhD in Political Economy and was a member of the Obama Presidential Center Faculty Partnership Advisory Committee.

He is the author or co-author of Political Economy for Public Policy, Theory and Credibility, and Thinking Clearly with Data (all from Princeton University Press) as well as many articles in both political science and economics. He has also written for outlets such as Foreign Policy, the Boston Review, the Harvard Business Review, War on the Rocks, the Chicago Tribune, the National Interest, and others. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and the United States Institute of Peace.

Before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 2007, Bueno de Mesquita was a faculty member in the political science department at Washington University in St. Louis and was a Lady Davis Fellow and visiting faculty member at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Center for the Study of Rationality and Department of Political Science. Ethan is an alumnus of the University of Chicago, AB’96, and earned his MA (2000) and PhD (2003) in political science from Harvard University.