Dr. Jeffrey Bosworth earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and is currently an Associate Professor at Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania (Mansfield campus) and Chair of the Department of History, Philosophy, and Political Science. His research is broadly aimed at democracy and development in the Caribbean with a special focus on Belize. In particular, he investigates the complex interplay of political parties, elections, and electoral laws and the role they play in shaping overall democratic institutions and practices.
His most recent publication examined the impact of globalization on the evolution of political culture in Belize, which appears in New Political Culture in the Caribbean (edited by Henke and Reno, University of the West Indies Press). As part of an ongoing interest in democratic sustainability, he conducted a grant-funded field research project consisting of interviews with Belizean elites. His current project addresses the ways in which the small size of a polity can impact democratic performance. Over the last decade, he has co-directed a summer education abroad program on Belizean politics, culture, and globalization with over 150 participants.