About our authors David Samuels is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Political Science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego in 1998. His research and teaching interests include Brazilian and Latin American politics, US and Latin American relations, and democratization. Professor Samuels has published articles in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Legislative Studies Quarterly and the British Journal of Political Science, among others. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation (in 1996 and 1999) and the McKnight Foundation (in 2001), and was awarded Fulbright Fellowships in 2004 and 2013.