David_D._Laitin
David D. Laitin (born in 1945)[1] is the James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science in the School of Humanities and Science at Stanford University.[2] He is a comparative politics scholar who has written works on civil war,[3] ethnic identity, culture and nationalism.[4] He is known for his application of rational choice to the study of ethnic conflict,[3] and for bridging a gap between ethnography and rational choice.[5]
He was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in 2021.[6] He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.[7] Before joining Stanford University, he was a professor in the political science department at the University of Chicago.[7]
In 1986, he published a book about the Yoruba in Nigeria, Hegemony and Culture: The Politics of Religious Change Among the Yoruba.[7] Laitin studied Russian and lived with a Russian family in Estonia for a year.[7] The experiences formed the basis of his 1998 book Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad.[7] In the 1990s and 2000s, Laitin published several highly influential works on ethnicity with James Fearon.[7][4]