Zachary Elkins

My research sits at the intersection of comparative politics, public law, political psychology, and social-science methodology. I am especially interested in how formal rules interact with leaders’ motives, citizens’ concepts, and historical context—and in building datasets and digital tools that make these patterns visible across countries and over time.

I am co-director of the Comparative Constitutions Project and Constitute, and co-director of the Center for Law and Democracy, a Lab on Concept Integration in Comparative Law, and the Embedded Scholars Program at The University of Texas at Austin.