2026 Zachary Elkins: Political Science Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Political Science	31	1040	939	534	462	119	12724

Overview

Zachary Elkins is affiliated with The University of Texas at Austin in the United States. Their research primarily spans the social sciences with a concentrated focus on law and political science, including related interdisciplinary fields such as sociology, economics, and management.

The main areas of study covered in their work include judicial and constitutional studies, American constitutional law and politics, legal and constitutional studies, political conflict and governance, politics and society in Latin America, electoral systems and political participation, as well as political influence and corporate strategies.

Elkins has contributed significantly to several publication venues. Frequent publication sources include:

International Journal of Constitutional Law
SSRN Electronic Journal
Perspectives on Politics
Annual Review of Political Science
Learning & Behavior

Their recent peer-reviewed papers include the following:

What Can We Learn from Written Constitutions?, 2021, Annual Review of Political Science
Imagining a World without the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 2022, World Politics
Term-limit evasions and the non-compliance cycle, 2021, Constitutional Political Economy

Alongside these, they co-authored a paper titled The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications in 2021, published in Perspectives on Politics. While not a coauthor, another 2020 paper in Learning & Behavior on associative models and transitive inference in rhesus monkeys was listed in their related works.

Elkins has worked with a range of frequent collaborators, including:

Tom Ginsburg
Diana Kapiszewski
Ashley Moran
Richard Albert
Daniel M. Brinks

Beyond articles, Elkins has contributed to book publications, such as The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.

Best Publications

The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy

Beth A. Simmons;Zachary Elkins

2268
Citations
Competing for Capital: The Diffusion of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960-2000

Zachary S Elkins;Andrew T. Guzman;Beth A. Simmons

1429
Citations
Competing for Capital: The Diffusion of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960-2000

Zachary Elkins;Andrew T. Guzman;Beth A. Simmons

1257
Citations
On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework

Zachary S Elkins;Beth Simmons

1023
Citations
The Endurance of National Constitutions

Zachary S Elkins;Tom Ginsburg;James Melton

967
Citations
The Endurance of National Constitutions

Unknown

792
Citations
The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy

Beth A. Simmons;Frank Dobbin;Geoffrey Garrett

617
Citations
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In-group Pride

Rui J. P. De Figueiredo;Zachary Elkins

569
Citations
Gradations of Democracy? Empirical Tests of Alternative Conceptualizations

Zachary S Elkins

454
Citations
Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter?

Tom Ginsburg;Zachary S Elkins;Justin Blount

346
Citations
Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States

Zachary S Elkins;John Sides

208
Citations
Latin American Presidentialism in Comparative and Historical Perspective

Jose Antonio Cheibub;Zachary Elkins;Tom Ginsburg

205
Citations
Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism

José Antonio Cheibub;Zachary S Elkins;Tom Ginsburg

188
Citations
On the Evasion of Executive Term Limits

Tom Ginsburg;James Melton;Zachary Elkins

174
Citations
Commitment and Diffusion: How and Why National Constitutions Incorporate International Law

Tom Ginsburg;Svitlana Chernykh;Zachary Elkins

166
Citations
On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework

Beth A. Simmons;Zachary Elkins

156
Citations
On the Interpretability of Law: Lessons from the Decoding of National Constitutions

James Melton;Zachary S Elkins;Tom Ginsburg;Kalev Leetaru

137
Citations
Getting to Rights: Treaty Ratification, Constitutional Convergence, and Human Rights Practice

Zachary Elkins;Tom Ginsburg;Beth A. Simmons

102
Citations
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In-Group Pride

Zachary Elkins;Rui J.P. de Figueiredo

85
Citations
Globalization and Policy Diffusion: Explaining Three Decades of Liberalization

Beth A. Simmons;Zachary Elkins;Miles Kahler;David Lake

57
Citations
Competing for Capital: The Diffusion of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960-2000

Zachary Elkins;Andrew T. Guzman;Beth A. Simmons

57
Citations
The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications

Alan M. Jacobs;Tim Büthe;Tim Büthe;Ana Arjona;Leonardo R. Arriola

51
Citations
Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes: Contents

Tom Ginsburg;Alberto Simpser

40
Citations
Commitment and Diffusion: How and Why National Constitutions Incorporate International Law

Svitlana Chernykh;Tom Ginsburg;Zachary Elkins

20
Citations
The constitutional referendum in historical perspective

Alexander Hudson;Zachary Elkins

20
Citations
Constitute: The world's constitutions to read, search, and compare

Zachary S Elkins;Tom Ginsburg;James Melton;Robert Shaffer

17
Citations
What Can We Learn from Written Constitutions

Zachary Elkins;Tom Ginsburg

15
Citations
On the influence of Magna Carta and other cultural relics

Zachary Elkins;Tom Ginsburg;James Melton

10
Citations
Imagining a World Without the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Zachary Elkins;Tom Ginsburg;James Melton

8
Citations
The Citizen as Founder: Public Participation in Constitutional Approval

Tom Ginsburg;Zachary Elkins;Justin Blount

7
Citations
The Content of Authoritarian Constitutions

Zachary Elkins;James Melton

7
Citations
Term-limit evasions and the non-compliance cycle

Zachary Elkins

6
Citations
Do executive term limits cause constitutional crises

Tom Ginsburg;Zachary S Elkins;James Melton

5
Citations
Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter?

Tom Ginsburg;Justin Blount;Zachary Elkins

5
Citations
In Search of the Unified Nation-State: National Attachment among Distinctive Citizens

Zachary Elkins;John Sides

3
Citations
Transparency in Qualitative Research: An Overview of Key Findings and Recommendations (Introduction to Working Paper Series: Qualitative Transparency Deliberations, Working Group Final Reports)

Alan M. Jacobs;Tim Buthe;Ana M Arjona;Leonardo R. Arriola

3
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

Tom Ginsburg University of Chicago

Beth A. Simmons University of Pennsylvania

José Antonio Cheibub University of Pittsburgh

Jonas Tallberg Stockholm University

John Sides Vanderbilt University

Barbara Vis Utrecht University

Erik Bleich Middlebury College

Mark A. Pollack Temple University

Daniel P. Miranker The University of Texas at Austin

David A. Lake University of California, San Diego

External Links

Personal website of Zachary Elkins

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