Guillermo Toral

Guillermo Toral

Assistant Professor of Political Science

IE University

I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at IE University, and a Faculty Affiliate at MIT GOV/LAB. I work in the fields of comparative politics and political economy, with a regional focus on Latin America and Southern Europe, and a substantive focus on issues of development, governance, and corruption.

My research agenda centers on relationships among state actors (politicians, bureaucrats, and anti-corruption agents), anti-corruption policies, and their impacts on public service delivery and human development. In my work, I use big administrative datasets, surveys, experimental and quasi-experimental designs, and extensive qualitative fieldwork.

Some of my work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Annual Review of Political Science.

Interests
  • Comparative Politics
  • Political Economy
  • Causal inference
  • Qualitative fieldwork
  • Latin America
  • Southern Europe
Education
  • PhD Political Science, 2020

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • MPhil Comparative Government, 2011

    University of Oxford

  • Lic. Political Science & Public Administration, 2009

    Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Articles

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(2023). Bureaucratic Politics: Blind Spots and Opportunities in Political Science. Annual Review of Political Science, 26:271-90.

Article Publisher Inventory of articles on the bureaucracy

(2010). Immigrant Organizations as Civil Society: A Three-Dimensional Analysis. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas 132:105-130.

Article Publisher

Chapters in books

(2015). Grooming great teachers. Chapter 4 in Great Teachers: How to Raise Student Learning in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington DC: World Bank.

Book Publisher Book in Spanish Book in Portuguese

(2015). Recruiting better teachers. Chapter 3 in Great Teachers: How to Raise Student Learning in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington DC: World Bank.

Book Publisher Book in Spanish Book in Portuguese

Policy reports

(2019). Information and Accountability: Evidence Syntheses of Within-Government and Citizen-Government Accountability Pathways. Transparency & Accountability Initiative.

Report Publisher Evidence review tool

(2018). Taxation and accountability in developing countries. Transparency & Accountability Initiative.

Report Publisher

(2018). Effect of International Standards on Accountability Behaviors. Transparency & Accountability Initiative.

Report Publisher

Teaching

IE University (Madrid, Spain)

Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA, USA)

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Natal, RN, Brazil)

USP-IPSA Summer School in Methods in Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations (Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil)

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) (Cambridge, MA, USA)

Guest lectures

  • Guest lecture on political cycles in the Master of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. November 2021.
  • Guest lecture on fieldwork in the Master in Social Sciences of the Carlos III-Juan March Institute. October 2021.
  • Guest lecture in the course Representation and Accountability (taught by Kristin Michelitch at Vanderbilt University). October 2021.
  • Guest lecture in the course Introduction to Comparative Politics (taught by Noam Lupu at Vanderbilt University). November 2020.
  • Guest lecture in the course Corruption: Finding it and Fixing it (taught by Jeeyang Rhee Baum at Harvard University). November 2019.

Contact