David Laitin, Stanford University
Vice President 2005-06

David Laitin received his foundational education in political science as the roommate of Peter Katzenstein at Swarthmore College.  He received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, working under the direction of Ernst Haas and Hanna Pitkin.  His principal field is comparative politics and he has conducted field research in Somalia, Yorubaland, Catalonia, and Estonia, working on issues of language and religion, and how these cultural phenomena link nation to state. His books include Politics, Language and Thought: The Somali Experience; Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change Among the Yoruba; and Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Most recently, in collaboration with James Fearon, he has published two papers in the American Political Science Review on ethnicity, ethnic cooperation, and the sources of civil war.

For the APSA, he has served on the Council, and its executive committee; as president of the Comparative Politics Section; and is currently serving on the APSA Taskforce on Political Violence and Terrorism. He has taught at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Chicago, and is currently the Watkins Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.