Valerie Bunce (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is the Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies, Professor of Government, and Chair of the Government Department.

Her primary field is comparative politics and, secondarily, international relations. Her research and teaching address comparative democratization, the origins and consequences of imperial decline, inter-ethnic cooperation and conflict, peace-making after internal wars, and the diffusion of capitalism from the West to the "rest."

Her geographical focus is primarily east-central Europe, the Balkans and the Soviet successor states, though her comparative interests extend to Latin America.

She is the author, most recently, of Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Collapse of Socialism and the State (Cambridge University Press, 1999), and her articles have appeared, for example, in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Politics and Society and International Organization, together with a variety of area-based journals and edited volumes.