Erik Martinez Kuhonta

Dr. Erik Martinez Kuhonta is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. Born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, Kuhonta grew up in Rome, Italy, and is originally from the Philippines. 

His research is centred on comparative political development, state formation, democracy, political economy, religion, and comparative-historical analysis, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia. He is the author of The Institutional Imperative: The Politics of Equitable Development in Southeast Asia, which was short-listed for the Canadian Political Science Association Prize in Comparative Politics. He is co-editor of Party System Institutionalization in Asia: Democracies, Autocracies, and the Shadow of the Past and Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis. 

Kuhonta has published articles in Comparative Political Studies, Pacific Affairs, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Asian Survey, and Pacific Review. He has also written for The Globe and Mail, The Gazette (Montreal), La Presse, and Open Canada. Kuhonta is former president of the Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies and former director of McGill’s Institute for the Study of International Development. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, and his B.A. Magna Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania.