Cesar Zucco

Cesar Zucco is the Lemann Family Foundation Professor of Brazilian Studies and Professor of International and Public Affairs. He previously served for twelve years as Professor of Politics and Public Policy at FGV/EBAPE in Rio de Janeiro and as Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, and has held visiting or temporary appointments at Nuffield College, Princeton University, Yale University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and IUPERJ (now IESP-UERJ). His research focuses on Latin American politics, with particular emphasis on voting behavior, the measurement and meaning of ideology, and the political economy of public policy in Brazil and in comparative perspective. His work combines observational and experimental methods and has been published in leading political science journals, including American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, and Comparative Political Studies, as well as in leading area studies journals.

Zucco is the author of two books published by Cambridge University Press. The Volatility Curse (2020), coauthored with Daniela Campello, examines how economic volatility-particularly in commodity-and capital-flow-dependent economies-leads voters to misattribute responsibility for economic outcomes, thereby undermining democratic accountability. His first book, Partisans, Antipartisans, and Nonpartisans (2018, with David Samuels), analyzes the development and political consequences of partisanship and antipartisanship in Brazil. In addition to ongoing extensions of this work and new research on culture and politics, Zucco co-coordinates, with Timothy Power, the Brazilian Legislative Surveys, a three-decade initiative tracking the attitudes and behavior of Brazilian legislators.