Erin McDonnell

Notre Dame du Lac and Kellogg Associate Professor

Research Interests

Development, Theory, Political Sociology, Organizational Sociology, and Public Administration

Subfields

Cultural Sociology, Global and Transnational Sociology, Political Sociology, Qualitative Methods, Sociology of Development, Theory

Profile

Erin Metz McDonnell is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Her research cuts across Organizational, Political, Cultural, and Economic Sociology. Her work focuses on the reciprocal relationship between culture and social organization, from consumer groups to state administrative capacity. Her award-winning work has been published in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, and Comparative Political Studies. Her book project Patchwork Leviathan analyzes the emergence and functioning of niches of organizational excellence within otherwise-weak state administrations, combining qualitative research on four niches within the contemporary Ghanaian state with comparative historical analyses of state organizations in China, Brazil, Kenya, and Nigeria.