Robin Broad

Dr. Robin Broad is Professor of International Development at the School of International Service, American University, where she is also affiliated with the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. Dr. Broad has a wide range of professional experience — from international economist in the U.S. Treasury Department, the US Congress (with then-Congressman Charles Schumer) and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to work with civil-society organizations in the Philippines and El Salvador. She received her Masters and PhD from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and her BA (economics and environmental studies) from Williams College.

In recognition for her work, she has been awarded the International Studies Association’s
J. Ann Tickner award for “someone who … consistently combines bravery in pursuing high-quality, pioneering scholarship that pushes the boundaries of the discipline.” The Award Committee specified that she “was one of the first group of scholars to infuse scholarship and policy thinking on development with environmental considerations, both in general and as they affect the most marginalized populations in developing countries.” A hallmark of her work has been to bring those voices to national and global spaces while exposing the challenges that global structures present for local communities.

Dr. Broad’s research interests center on the political economy of development – with specific work related to: (1.) the public and private structures of global economic governance; (2.) the impact of these structures of governance on economies, people, and their environments; and (3.) the social movements that are challenging the current structures of global economic governance. Within this larger context, her latest research and advocacy work center on “responsible mining policy” and investor-state disputes with specific work in El Salvador, the Philippines, and Costa Rica. Her Guggenheim project – When Poorer People and Their Governments Defend the Environment – continues this work.

Dr. Broad is an active “scholar participant” in the movement to create a more just and sustainable economic globalization. She has been cofounder of networks to link academics and practitioners, including International Allies (of the Roundtable against Metallic Mining in El Salvador) and the Philippine Development Forum. She is a current or past board member of Earthworks, Focus on the Global South, GoodWeave (formerly Rugmark), the Bank Information Center (BIC) and the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). She is currently an Associate Fellow at the Vermont Law School’s New Economy Law Center, and a Fellow at the Samdhana Institute.

Dr. Broad has received other grants/fellowships for her work, including from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Association of Asian Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Henry Luce Foundation.

Dr. Broad is author or coauthor (with John Cavanagh) of books including Development Redefined: How the Market Met Its Match, Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy, Plundering Paradise: The Struggle for the Environment in the Philippines, and Unequal Alliance: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Philippines. She is also widely published in academic and policy publications, including The Journal of Peasant Studies, Third World Quarterly, Foreign Policy, World Development, World Policy Journal, The Nation, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. She blogs on Triple Crisis and is a pundit-contributor to The Hill.

Photograph credit: Jeffrey MacMillan