Ellen Lust

Ellen Lust serves as Professor in the Department of Government within Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, while also holding a professorship at the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. She directs the Einaudi Center for International Studies and holds the John S. Knight Professorship of International Studies.

Her research examines social institutions and local authorities in governance across Southwest Asia and North Africa, with extensive fieldwork conducted in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Zambia. Key themes include legitimacy formation, political development, and the dynamics between competing authorities in weak states, as demonstrated in her 2022 book Everyday Choices: The Role of Competing Authorities and Social Institutions in Politics and Development.

Lust's recent publications reveal consistent methodological rigor across comparative political contexts, employing experimental designs and survey research to analyze citizen-state interactions. Her work bridges macro-level institutional analysis with micro-foundations of political behavior, particularly regarding property rights, gender representation, and authority structures in developing regions.

No specific scientific awards were documented in the provided materials.

Lust maintains significant advisory relationships with major international organizations:

• Carter Center
• Freedom House
• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
• U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
• World Bank

She founded the Governance and Local Development Institute at Yale University in 2013, which now operates jointly between Cornell's Brooks School and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, facilitating cross-institutional research on governance challenges.