Prof. Jennifer Widner

Jennifer Widner is Professor of Politics & International Affairs at Princeton University, and directs Innovations for Successful Societies, a program that supports reform leaders who work on especially challenging problems and improving government performance. Before joining the Princeton faculty in 2004-5, she taught at Harvard and the University of Michigan. 

Her current research focuses on the political economy of institutional reform, government accountability, and service delivery.  She also remains interested in constitution writing, constitutional design, and fair dealing—topics of earlier research. She is author of Building the Rule of Law (W. W. Norton), a study of courts and law in Africa, and she has published articles on a variety of topics in Democratization, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Development Studies, The William & Mary Law Review, Daedalus, the American Journal of International Law, and other publications.  She is completing work on a book about making government work in challenging settings, drawing on experiences in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America.