Carter, Danielle

Danielle Carter is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated from Goucher College in 2003 with a degree in International Relations. She then worked for Sheladia Associates, an international development firm, before pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science. Her current fields of study are Comparative Politics (major field) and Public Policy (minor field). Danielle’s substantive interests include state-society relations, political culture and democratization. She is primarily interested in the Sub-Saharan African region with a particular focus on Southern Africa.

Danielle recently returned from South Africa where she conducted pre-dissertation research and undertook intensive language training as a Fulbright-Hays fellow. Under the direction of her advisor Dr. Michael Bratton, Danielle intends to write her dissertation on how state weakness shapes individual reliance on non-state forms of security in post-Apartheid South Africa. Ultimately, she hopes to unpack the mechanisms linking reliance on private security to individual attitudes toward democracy and perceptions of state legitimacy.