Donna Lee Van Cott is associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut. She is author of From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics (2005), winner of the 2006 Best Book on Comparative Politics award, American Political Science Association, Organized Section on Race, Ethnicity and Politics, and a 2006 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She is also the author of The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America (2000) and the editor of Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America (1994). Van Cott has published several dozen articles on ethnic and Andean politics in such journals as Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Democracy, Studies in Comparative International Development, América Latina Hoy, Democratization, Latin American Research Review, and Latin American Politics and Society. She has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Peace, University of Notre Dame. She previously taught at Tulane University and the University of Tennessee.