Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

About

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. He is 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. Bueno de Mesquita 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, he served as Interim Dean and Deputy Dean of the Harris School since 2011, and held various leadership roles including chair of the Pearson Institute Advisory Council and 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 and has served on the steering committee responsible for establishing the PhD in Political Economy, as well as on the Obama Presidential Center Faculty Partnership Advisory Committee. His academic work includes authorship of several books and numerous articles in political science and economics, and his research has been supported by notable institutions such as the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and the United States Institute of Peace. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita earned his…

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Social psychology
• Economics
• Psychology
• Law
• Computer Security
• Sociology
• Management science
• Econometrics

Selected publications

• Theory and Credibility : Integrating Theoretical and Empirical Social Science

  2021 · 74 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

• Deterrence with Imperfect Attribution

  American Political Science Review · 2020 · 43 citations

  Motivated by recent developments in cyberwarfare, we study deterrence in a world where attacks cannot be perfectly attributed to attackers. In the model, each of $$ n $$ attackers may attack the defender. The defender observes a noisy signal that probabilistically attributes the attack. The defender may retaliate against one or more attackers and wants to retaliate against the guilty attacker only. We note an endogenous strategic complementarity among the attackers: if one attacker becomes more…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Commensurability Problem: Conceptual Difficulties in Estimating the Effect of Behavior on Behavior

  American Political Science Review · 2020 · 30 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  We pose the commensurability problem : When do the estimates generated by actual research designs correspond to quantities of theoretical interest? We study this question in settings where both treatment and outcome are behavior and the treatment effect of interest is decomposable into direct and informational channels. We establish two results. First, the quantity estimated by an actual research design is only commensurate with the total effect in the ideal experiment if treatment status in the…

  DOI

• Rebel Motivations and Repression

  American Political Science Review · 2022-09-06 · 23 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  How do different types of motivation influence the politics of collective action? We study a model of endogenous rebellion and repression to understand how different types of individual motivation affect participation, state repression, and the mechanisms by which state violence affects political contention. Unlike psychological rewards, material rewards are divided among successful rebels. Thus, in material rewards settings, repression that decreases mobilization and chances of success also inc…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Modeling Theories of Women's Underrepresentation in Elections

  American Journal of Political Science · 2023 · 22 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Research on women candidates in American elections uncovers four key facts: Women (i) are underrepresented among candidates, (ii) are underrepresented among office holders, (iii) perform better in office, and (iv) win open seats at equal rates to men. Scholars offer two types of explanations: Women are less willing to run than men, due to differential costs or a gap in self‐perceived qualification, or voters discriminate at the ballot box. We formally model these mechanisms. Lower willi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research on the Nature of Electoral Accountability

  NSF · $90k · 2008–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Scott Ashworth

  University of Chicago

  46 shared

• Christopher R. Berry

  University of Chicago

  29 shared

• Mehdi Shadmehr

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  8 shared

• Shanna Rose

  Claremont McKenna College

  4 shared

• Matthew Stephenson

  4 shared

• Amanda Friedenberg

  4 shared

• James Alt

  University of California, Davis

  4 shared

• Benjamin Shaver

  3 shared

Education

• B.A., Political Science

  The University of Chicago

  1996

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• Don Courseyh-19
• Chad Broughtonh-10