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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Guillermo Toral (2024). Turnover: How Lame-Duck Governments Disrupt the Bureaucracy and Service Delivery before Leaving Office. Journal of Politics 86.4: 1348 - 1367.

Pre-print Publisher Appendix Replication data Non-technical summary Summary in Portuguese Best Paper Award, APSA Health Politics and Policy Section Media coverage @ Nada es Gratis Media coverage @ Nexo Media coverage @ BBC Brasil Media coverage @ Globo G1 Media coverage @ MIT News

Guillermo Toral (2024). How Patronage Delivers: Political Appointments, Bureaucratic Accountability, and Service Delivery in Brazil. American Journal of Political Science 68(2): 797-815.

Article Publisher Appendix Replication data Non-technical summary Summary in Portuguese Best Paper Award, REPAL Media coverage @ Folha de São Paulo Media coverage @ Frankfurter Allgemeine Media coverage @ Nexo Media coverage @ The World

Sarah Brierley, Kenneth Lowande, Rachel Augustine Potter, Guillermo Toral (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

Taylor Boas, F. Daniel Hidalgo, Guillermo Toral (2021). Competence versus Priorities: Negative Electoral Responses to Education Quality in Brazil. Journal of Politics 83.4: 1417 - 1431.

Article Publisher Appendix Replication data Pre-analysis plan, field experiment Pre-analysis plan, survey experiment

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

Article Publisher

Editor-invited book reviews

Guillermo Toral (2024). Mission Driven Bureaucrats: Empowering People To Help Government Do Better, by Dan Honig (Oxford University Press, 2024). Governance forthcoming.

Guillermo Toral (2022). Decadent Developmentalism: The Political Economy of Democratic Brazil, by Taylor, Matthew M. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Political Science Quarterly 137 (2): 435-437.

Review Publisher

Chapters in books

Barbara Bruns, Javier Luque, David Evans, Guillermo Toral, Noah Yarrow, Soledad de Gregorio (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

Barbara Bruns, Javier Luque, Guillermo Toral, David Evans, Soledad de Gregorio (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

Lily L. Tsai, Benjamin S. Morse, Guillermo Toral, Varja Lipovsek (2019). Information and Accountability: Evidence Syntheses of Within-Government and Citizen-Government Accountability Pathways. Transparency & Accountability Initiative.

Report Publisher Evidence review tool

Lily L. Tsai, Guillermo Toral, Blair Read, Varja Lipovsek (2018). Taxation and accountability in developing countries. Transparency & Accountability Initiative.

Report Publisher

Lily L. Tsai, Benjamin S. Morse, Guillermo Toral, Varja Lipovsek (2018). Effect of International Standards on Accountability Behaviors. Transparency & Accountability Initiative.

Report Publisher

Papers

Guillermo Toral (2024). Street-level rule of law: Prosecutor presence and the fight against corruption. GLD working paper no. 71.

Paper Publisher GLD Policy Brief

Guillermo Toral (2024). Internal Control as State Capacity. CAF working paper 2024/08.

Paper Publisher

Guillermo Toral (2023). Can anti-corruption policies curb political budget cycles? Evidence from public employment in Brazil. Working paper.

Paper Best Comparative Policy Paper Award, APSA Public Policy Section Honorable Mention, Best Political Institutions Paper, LASA Political Institutions Section

Guillermo Toral (2019). Information, oversight, and compliance: A field experiment on horizontal accountability in Brazil. Working paper.

Paper Pre-analysis plan

Guillermo Toral (2015). Franchise reforms in the age of migration: Why do governments enfranchise noncitizens?. MIT Working Paper 2015-12.

Paper

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