Matthew S. Winters

Matthew S. Winters is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. He serves as Director of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies and maintains multiple academic affiliations including Professor at the Center for African Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies, Professor at Center for Global Studies, and Affiliate at Center for Social & Behavioral Science. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

Winters' research focuses on governance and accountability in lower- and middle-income countries, with particular expertise in foreign aid, development, and corruption in Indonesia and Brazil. His scholarly work spans several interconnected areas: Foreign Aid Effectiveness and Allocation, Corruption studies, Political Participation, Taxation and Public Service Provision, and International Political Economy. His methodological approach often incorporates experimental design and survey research to understand citizen responses to political information.

His extensive publication record demonstrates consistent scholarly output across top political science and interdisciplinary journals. His research examines how citizens react to political information, how foreign aid affects government legitimacy, and how corruption influences voting behavior, with particular attention to Latin America and Southeast Asia. Winters frequently collaborates with scholars like Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro, Simone Dietrich, and Kate Baldwin on cross-national research projects.

Winters has received support for his research from organizations including USAID and AidData. His work has been published in premier journals such as World Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Comparative Politics, reflecting the high impact of his scholarship across multiple subfields of political science.

Outside his academic work, Winters has been involved with the Champaign-Urbana Folk and Roots Festival as a booking committee member and served as a radio DJ on WKCR-FM in New York City for 11 years, hosting programs featuring bluegrass, country, blues, gospel, and classical music.