Expertise

Sustainable development; public policy reform; institutional analysis; environmental governance; collective action; decentralization; Latin America

At the Keough School

Krister Andersson is the Notre Dame Professor of Sustainable Development in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He also is an affiliate of the Keough School’s Pulte Institute for Global Development.

Courses

• Public Policy and Behavioral Science (elective course for master of global affairs)
• Critical Thinking in Pursuit of Sustainability (undergraduate elective course in global affairs)

Research and Publications

Krister Andersson studies the politics of environmental governance with particular focus on local institutional arrangements and the role they play in explaining policy outcomes. His research, published in four books and some 80 articles and book chapters, examines efforts to pursue improved natural resource governance outcomes in the Global South. His field-based research program has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and numerous other agencies and private foundations.

Recent Work

• Collective Forest Land Rights Facilitate Cooperative Behavior. Conservation Letters (with Kaur, K., Chang, K., 2023).
• Decentralization Can Increase Cooperation Among Public Officials. American Journal of Political Science. 66(3): 554-569 (with Molina-Garzón, A., Grillos, T., Zarychta, A., 2022).
• Governance Reform, Decentralization, and Teamwork in Public Service Delivery. Public Administration 2021:1–27 (with Grillos, T., Zarychta, A) 2021.
• Voluntary Leadership and the Emergence of Institutions for Self-Governance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117(44):27292-9. (with P. Chang, K. Molina Garzon, A.L. 2020)
• Gender Quotas Increase Equality and Effectiveness of Climate Policy Interventions. Nature Climate Change 9 (4): 330-334 (with Cook, N.J., Grillos, T) 2019.
• Experimental Evidence on Payments for Forest Commons Conservation. Nature Sustainability 1(3): 128–135 (with Cook, N.J., Grillos, T., Lopez, M.C., Salk, C.F., Wright, G.D., Mwangi, E). 2018.
• Wealth and the Distribution of Benefits from Tropical Forests: Implications for REDD+. Land Use Policy 72: 510–522 (with Smith, S.M., Alston, L.J. Duchelle, A. E., Mwangi, E., Larson, A.M., de Sassi, C., Sills, E.O., Sunderlin, W.D. and Wong, G. Y.) 2018.

Biography

Andersson earned a BA in speech communication from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California; a master’s degree in international relations and diplomacy from Schiller International University in Paris; and a PhD in public policy from Indiana University, Bloomington. He was awarded the Giorgio Ruffolo Research Fellowship from Harvard University in 2007. Prior to pursuing his doctorate, Andersson was a forestry officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization with postings in Rome; Quito, Ecuador, and Santiago, Chile. Prior to coming to Notre Dame, Andersson was professor of political science at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Professional Roles/Positions

• Editorial board member of Nature Scientific Reports (2023-present), Journal of Environmental Management (2018-present), Sustainability (2019-present),  and Springer Nature’s book series on Human-Environment Interactions
• Policy advisor to several international research and policy organizations, including the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), OECD’s program on Territorial Development; Food and Agriculture Organizations of the UN (FAO); Chile’s National Forestry Institute (INFOR); Ecuador’s National Forest Service; Peru’s National Forest Service (SERFOR); Tanzania’s Forestry and Beekeeping Division; The Lao PDR’s National Science Council.