Bio & CV
Frank C. Erwin, Jr. Centennial Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin (2021–present)
Professor (by courtesy), McCombs School of Business and LBJ School of Public Affairs
Co-Director, Innovations for Peace and Development (IPD)
Co-Founder and President, Evaluasi
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study at the Toulouse School of Economics (2025)
Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar · Member of EGAP
Ph.D., Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007
My research portfolio is organized around Security, Conflict, & Peace Evidence. Four substantive buckets sit inside that umbrella:
- Pressure — coercive instruments: sanctions, illicit-finance interdiction, beneficial-ownership transparency, terror financing, counterinsurgent coercion.
- Persuasion — soft / positive instruments: development aid, donor coordination, capacity building, aid effectiveness, cooperative engagement.
- Stabilization — post-conflict and peacebuilding: DDR, ex-combatant reintegration, transitional governance, the war-to-peace arc.
- Dynamics — positive analysis of conflict processes: civil war, terrorism, political violence, natural-resource conflict.
Running underneath the four substantive buckets is Methodology — a foundational band covering external validity, research transparency, pre-registration, and research ethics.
I use field experiments, statistical and computational models, and extensive fieldwork across Colombia, DRC, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, the Bahamas, and elsewhere.
Publications appear in Nature Human Behaviour, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Penn Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and Cambridge University Press, among others.
Where my research has taken me — personal fieldwork sites, country-focused study locations, and the places where Evaluasi has conducted impact evaluations. Click the map to open the interactive full-screen version.
Department of Government
The University of Texas at Austin
3.102 Batts, Austin, TX 78712
mikefindley@utexas.edu