Alain Schläpfer

Social Science Research Scholar
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL)
Stanford University

Lecturer
Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Stanford University

Welcome

My research studies the foundations of cooperation in human societies. I am interested in the social norms and institutions that allow cooperation to emerge among individuals and groups, how these mechanisms evolve over time, and why they sometimes break down. Understanding these processes is central to explaining phenomena ranging from peaceful coexistence after conflict to the resilience of democratic institutions.

My work combines formal theory with empirical analysis to study cooperation across a range of political and social settings. Although my research spans topics including democratic backsliding, post-conflict reconciliation, authoritarian influence, and the transmission of social norms, these projects all address a common question: how do societies create, sustain, and lose the norms and institutions that make cooperation possible?

Drawing on approaches from both economics and political science, I seek to develop theoretically grounded and empirically rigorous explanations for the emergence, maintenance, and erosion of cooperation. My research combines formal models with causal inference, historical analysis, survey data, experiments, and qualitative evidence.

I am a Social Science Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), where I also teach in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy. I received my PhD in Economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Explore my research program here.

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