Dr. McNulty, Associate Professor of Government, is a Latin Americanist with expertise in participatory governance, gender, decentralization, and development. She is also the Director of Faculty Diversity Initiatives at Franklin and Marshall College, where she leads efforts to diversify the faculty and promote inclusive pedagogies.
Dr. McNulty’s book, Democracy from Above?, explores the effect of nationally mandated participatory reforms in the developing world. These reforms are becoming more common in countries seeking to reduce the gap between dissatisfied citizens and unresponsive governments. The book tests the hypothesis that top-down national participatory reforms strengthen democratic governance over time. The first cross-national comparison on this issue, Democracy from Above? specifically explores whether the reforms effectively redress the persistent problems of discrimination, elite capture, clientelism, and corruption in the countries that adopt them. As officials and reformers around the world and at every level of government look to strengthen citizen involvement and confidence in the political process, this book provides a clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations of nationally mandated participatory reforms.
Dr. McNulty is also researching the issue of inclusion and participatory governance. In 2017 spent seven months in Peru observing participatory institutions in five municipalities. This research work suggests that participatory institutions are not naturally inclusive and that historically marginalized populations are not engaged equally in forums and meetings.
Her work has been published in Latin American Politics and Society, the Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Public Deliberation, among other scholarly outlets. She is also the author of Voice and Vote: Decentralization and Participation in Post-Fujimori Peru (Stanford University Press, 2011), which explores the origin and implementation of a Peruvian decentralization reform that is considered to be one of the most participatory in Latin America.
Dr. McNulty has worked, lived, and conducted extensive fieldwork in Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru. She has a Ph.D. in Political Science from The George Washington University and a M.A. in Political Science from New York University. In addition to studying, teaching, and researching in several Latin American countries, Professor McNulty worked for several years in the field of international development as a program manager and a monitoring and evaluation specialist. This experience has allowed her to work as a consultant for USAID-funded projects around the world, including Guatemala, Bolivia, Liberia, and Peru.
