Erin A. Snider is an Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service. She was a Fellow at the New America Foundation, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University's Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt. Her research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, and Middle East Policy, amongst others. She holds a PhD in politics from the University of Cambridge.
'Marketing Democracy provides a crucial angle to the robust body of research on authoritarian durability in the Middle East by showing how democracy promotion actually works on the ground. Snider meticulously traces how program officers in Western aid agencies, regime officials, and local civil society activists negotiate with each other to construct and reconstruct the actual content and implementation of these aid programs. Even though funders are well aware of its ineffectiveness, democracy promotion continues and does little to challenge entrenched power structures.' Melani Cammett, Harvard University 'By opening the black box of democracy aid, Erin Snider provides a pathbreaking contribution to our understanding of U.S. democracy promotion. Her attention to the voices of a variety of actors who participate in the aid process - including USAID bureaucrats, government officials of recipient states, and local activists - allows Snider to challenge prevailing notions of what democracy means and uncover how democracy assistance is constructed, negotiated, and executed.' Catherine Herrold, Syracuse University 'Across decades, the United States has spent billions of dollars to promote democracy, particularly in the Middle East. Yet, these efforts have borne little fruit. Snider brilliantly combines the lenses of political economy analysis with a decade of extraordinary fieldwork to explain why. In key cases, she powerfully elucidates how meaningful political reform is routinely subordinated in favour of 'negotiated deals' serving the agendas of the pivotal actors in both donor and recipient states.' James Morrison, London School of Economics and Political Science