Mershon affiliate Marcus Kurtz, professor of political science, was selected as Joan N. Huber Faculty Fellow for 2016 in recognition of his scholarship. The award is given in honor of emeritus professor Joan Huber, who served as dean of the Social and Behavioral Sciences from 1984 to 1992 and as Ohio State’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost until her retirement in 1993.

Kurtz’s research focuses on comparative politics, democratization, political economy and development, with a focus on Latin America. In 2014-15, he received a grant from the Mershon Center for "Property Rights, Political Conflict, and Economic Development."

His most recent book, Latin American State Building in Comparative Perspective: Social Foundations of Institutional Order(Cambridge University Press, 2013), provides an account of long-run institutional development in Latin America that emphasizes the social and political foundations of state-building processes. It has been described as a “landmark contribution to the study of state building in Latin America."

Kurtz is also author of Free Market Democracy and the Chilean and Mexican Countryside (Cambridge University Press, 2004) selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. His articles have appeared in International Organization, Comparative Political Studies, Politics & Society, Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, and Comparative Politics.

Other research examines the causes and consequences of differing strategies of international economic integration in Latin America, the role of the state in economic development, the cross-national measurement of state capability or governance, the relationship between natural resource wealth and political regime, as well as the effects of free market developmental strategies on the problem of democratic consolidation.

Kurtz is on the editorial board of Politics & Society and Latin American Politics and Society. He won Ohio State's Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2007. He is currently coordinator for the Comparative Politics Research Workshop in the Department of Political Science.

Mershon affiliates previously named as Joan N. Huber Faculty Fellows include Bruce Weinberg (2015), Randy Schweller (2012), Anthony Mughan (2008), Richard Herrmann (2007), and J. Craig Jenkins (2003).