Dr. Michael Touchton received his Ph.D. in Political Science from The University of
Colorado in 2009, and joined the faculty of the Department of Political Science at Boise
State University in 2011. For his dissertation titled "Institutions, Ideology and
Credible Commitment: The Rule of Law in Comparative Perspective", he investigated
the institutional, historical, and socioeconomic determinants of the rule of law through
comparative statistical analysis of 120 countries between 1996-2004. Dr. Touchton's
central research interests include: the political economy of credible commitment,
investment and development in a comparative setting, and the relationship between states
and markets in Latin America.

Articles

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Political Polarization as a Constraint on Corruption: A Cross-National Comparison (with David S. Brown and Andrew Whitford), World Development (2011)

Efforts to explain corruption have increased dramatically in recent years. The interest stems from the...

 

Elections, Credibility and the Rule of Law (UNDER REVIEW), Comparative Political Studies (2011)
 

Judging the Market: Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law (UNDER REVIEW), The Journal of Politics (2011)
 

Structure, Agency and Credible Commitment: Polarization in Comparative Perspective (UNDER REVIEW), The American Journal of Political Science (2011)

Recent evidence indicates a strong connection between a credible commitment to the rule of law...