Rachel M. McCleary
Research Fellow

Expertise: Political economy, moral and political philosophy

Rachel M. McCleary is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior research fellow at the Center for International Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

McCleary’s research is on trends in the field of U.S. international relief and development. Her forthcoming book, Internationalizing American Compassion: The United States Government and Private Voluntary Agencies in International Relief and Development, 1939 to Present (Oxford University Press), explores relations between the U.S. federal government and U.S.-based private voluntary agencies in international relief and development. Other books by McCleary are Seeking Justice: Ethics and International Affairs (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992) and Dictating Democracy: Guatemala and the of End Violent Revolution (University Press of Florida, 1999–English; Artemis-Edinter 1999–Spanish).

She has also published on the political economy of religion, including “Religion and Political Economy,” Review of Faith & International Affairs, spring 2007; “Salvation, Damnation, and Economic Incentives,” Journal of Contemporary Religion, January 2007; “A Market Approach to the Rise of the Geluk School in Tibet” (with Leonard van der Kuijp) and “The Formation of the Tibetan State Religion: The Geluk School 1419–1642” (with Leonard van der Kuijp), Center for International Development, working paper no. 154, December 2007. McCleary has also written on the effects of modernization on Buddhism in Tibet in “A Soul Bent over Itself: The Survival of Buddhism in Tibet.” Other publications, co-written with Robert Barro, are “Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2006; “Religion and Economy,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, spring 2006; and “Which Countries Have State Religions?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2005.

McCleary is working on a multiyear research project on the political economy of the Guatemalan dance industry from the Spanish conquest to contemporary times. In addition to writing a book manuscript, she is working with the Universidad Francisco Marroquín to mount an exhibition on Guatemalan dances.

McCleary holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago, a master’s in theological studies from Emory University, and a B.A. from Indiana University.