Governance Expert Cristina Corduneanu-Huci Joins SPP Faculty

Cristina Corduneanu-Huci, a governance specialist whose research focuses on the political economy of development, politics in non-democracies and government transparency, will join the faculty of CEU's new School of Public Policy this summer.

Cristina holds a PhD in Political Science from Duke University and an MA from the University of South Carolina. For her dissertation – Ambidextrous Regimes: Leadership Survival and Fiscal Transparency - she conducted extensive fieldwork in Morocco, Turkey and Romania. In addition, she has written on social movements, clientelism, bureaucratic reform, as well as on the politics of healthcare. Her work has appeared in Comparative Sociology, the World Bank Policy Research Working Papers series, as well as in several edited volumes. She co-authored a book entitled ‘Understanding Policy Change: How to Apply Political Economy Concepts in Practice’, exploring the complex relationship between collective action and economic development.

Cristina also benefited from a symbiotic relationship between her academic and policy experience. Since 2010, she has worked for the World Bank in Washington, DC, conducting political economy research and training activities for evidence-based policymaking. In this capacity, she was involved in studies of the distributive implications of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo, healthcare policies in Uruguay, as well as in projects on the rule of law and public financial management in the Middle East and North Africa region. Her research has been accompanied by various training programs prepared or delivered in Ethiopia, Singapore, Sudan and Ghana.

At SPP, she will be teaching courses on governance and the political economy of development.