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Bo Rothstein

Senior Researcher

Department of Political Science
Mail
bo.rothstein@pol.gu.se
Visiting address
Sprängkullsgatan 19
41123 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 711
40530 Göteborg

About Bo Rothstein

Bo Rothstein held the August Röhss Chair in Political Science at the University of Gothenborg from December 1994 to June 2021. The chair was established in 1901 by a donation from the Röhss family to the University of Gothenburg. Among the previous holders of this Chair are Rudolf Kjellen, Jörgen Westerståhl and Bo Särlvik. Since July 2021, Johannes Lindvall holds the August Röhss Chair.

Bo Rothstein took is Ph.D. in Political Science at Lund University in 1986 and was from 1986 and until 1993 assistant and (in 1992) associate professor (docent) at the Department of Government at Uppsala University. In 1993 he became Professor at the Swedish Institute for Working Life Research in Stockholm and took up his current position at University of Gothenburg in 1994. In 2016 he was appointed to a Chair in Government and Public Policy at University of Oxford, from which he resigned for returning to University of Gothenburg in 2018. He has been a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, Cornell University, Stanford University, Harvard University, Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, University of Bergen, Aalborg University, the Swedish Centre for Advanced Study, the Australian National University and the University of Washington in Seattle. In 2006 he served as Visiting Professor at the Department of Government at Harvard University. Together with Prof. Sören Holmberg he started the Quality of Government Institute at the department in 2004. In 2003, the Swedish Science Council selected him to a six year term as "leading scholar" In 2009, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation awarded him a five year grant of 15. mil. sek. in their new Wallenberg Scholars program that intends to support leading scholars in Sweden. This grant was prolonged for another five years in 2016. In 2013, he recieved an "Advanced Research Grant" from the European Science Council for a five year project.

Among his main publications in English are Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare and Social Traps and the Problem of Trust, both with Cambridge University Press. The Quality of Government: The Political Logic of Corruption, Inequality and Social Trust was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2011, Good Government: The Relevance of Political Science (ed. together with Sören Holmberg) published by Edward Elgar Press in 2013. His latest book is Making Sense of Corruption (together with Aiysha Varraich) published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.

Rothstein is a contributor to the public debate and has published more than 300 op-ed articles mostly in Swedish newspapers but also internationally.

In 2002, he received the prize for the defence of academic freedom from the Swedish Association of University Teachers. He is also member of the supporter club to his hometown soccer team Malmö FF – “the glorious blue”.

Pizes and awards

  • Prize from the Royal Society for Science in Uppsala for Interdisciplinary Research (2004).
  • Prize from the Swedish Association of University Teachers for the Promotion of Academic Freedom (2003).
  • Prize for best paper in Comparative Politics presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (2003, together with Dietlind Stolle).
  • The Stein Rokkan Lecture (key-note speech) at the Annual Meeting of the European Consortium for Political Research, Uppsala 2003.
  • The Shapiro Lecture (key-note speech) at the Annual Meeting of the UK Political Science Association, Leeds 2009
  • Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation award as "Wallenberg Scholars" in 2009 and 2016.
  • European Research Council "Advanced Research Grant" 2013
  • Awarded H.M. The Swedish King's medal (8th size with the ribbon of the Order of the Seraphim) "for significant contributions in the field of political science research"