Ian O. Smith, Ph.D.

Ph.D., Georgia State University
B.S., Georgia Tech

Regime development
Transition of rebel groups into political parties
Electoral protests

Ian O. Smith, Ph.D., received his Doctorate in Political Science from Georgia State University in 2015 with a focus on comparative politics and research methods, and his Bachelor of Science in International Affairs from Georgia Tech. His teaching interests include a wide variety of classes in the Political Science and International and Global Studies programs at St. Mary’s University.

Teaching students the methods and processes of conducting independent research into politics and policy is a major focus of his teaching. In addition, he teaches courses in international politics at the undergraduate level, covering topics such as democratization, international security, international political economy and American government.

In addition to undergraduate Political Science courses, he also teaches graduate International Relations courses at St. Mary’s, including U.S. Foreign Policy and European Security.

His research interests focus on the role of political institutions in transition with a particular focus on regime development, political parties and electoral protests. His recent projects have focused on long-term regime development trends and the transition of former rebel groups into political parties.

His works have been published in journals including Comparative Political Studies, Democratization, and Government and Opposition. In addition to academic journals Smith has also the been featured in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog and appeared on The Source on Texas Public Radio.

Smith, Ian O. (2014). “Election Boycotts and Hybrid Regime Survival.” Comparative Political Studies. 47:5.

Manning, Carrie and Ian O. Smith (2016). “Political Party Formation and Participation by Former Armed Opposition Groups after Civil War.” Democratization. 23:6.

Manning, Carrie and Ian O. Smith (2017). “Political Party Formation and Participation by Former Armed Opposition Groups after Civil War.” in Bullets to Ballots: The Transformation of Rebel Groups into Political Parties. Routledge.

Manning, Carrie and Ian O. Smith (2019). “Electoral Performance by Post-Rebel Parties” Government & Opposition. 54:3.

Manning, Carrie; Ian O. Smith, and Ozlem Tuncel Gurlek. (2023). Parties Politics, Peace: Electoral Inclusion as Peacebuilding. Routledge.

Manning, Carrie, Ian O. Smith, & Ozlem Tuncel (2022). “Rebels with a cause: Introducing the Post-Rebel Electoral Parties dataset.” Journal of Peace Research.