James W. McGuire specializes in comparative politics, focusing on democracy, social welfare policies, and public health in Latin America and East Asia.

McGuire is the author of Peronism without Perón (Stanford, 1997) and of articles and chapters on Argentine politics and labor unions; Latin American social policies; transitions from authoritarianism; and economic growth, income inequality, social welfare programs, and mortality decline, particularly in East Asia and Latin America. His book Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge, 2010) explores why some countries do better than others at raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. It won the 2011 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research. Democracy and Population Health (Cambridge, 2020) reviews the rise of scholarly interest in the association between the two phenomena, evaluates alternative indicators of democracy and of population health, assesses how particular dimensions of democracy have affected population health, and explores how population health has affected democracy. McGuire is a recipient of Wesleyan’s Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching.