Leonardo Baccini

Leonardo Baccini is a Full Professor of International Political Economy at McGill University's Department of Political Science and an associate member in the Department of Economics. He holds research fellowships at the Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche en Economie Quantitative (CIREQ) and the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship (CSDC). His research focuses on international political economy, comparative political economy, trade, development, and conflict. He has published extensively in top journals like the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and International Organization, and authored the book Cutting the Gordian Knot of Economic Reform (Oxford UP, 2014). His work has been featured in media outlets such as The Economist and USA Today.

Education includes a PhD in Political Science from Trinity College Dublin (2010), an MA in International Relations from the University of Bologna (2005), and a Laurea in Economics from the University of Florence (2003, summa cum laude). He has held appointments at the London School of Economics, Princeton University, Stanford University, and the European University Institute.

Research interests span trade agreements, economic reform, populism, and the political economy of globalization. His datasets, including the DesTA database on trade agreement design, have received international recognition, including the IPES Best Dataset Award (2017). He has secured grants from SSHRC, the MSSI Social Sciences and Humanities Fund, and other institutions.

Teaching includes courses on populism, international trade politics, and causal inference. He has supervised numerous PhD and master’s students and serves on editorial boards for journals like World Politics and Political Science Research and Methods. His awards include the Michael Wallerstein Best Article Award (2022) and the David A. Lake Award (2018).