Michael D. McGinnis studies the unique contributions that faith-based organizations make to the design and implementation of public policy related to humanitarian relief, development assistance, peace-building, and reconciliation in troubled regions of the world, as well as standard public services in education, health care, and welfare assistance in societies less directly challenged by the ravages of war. His research is inspired by the hope that application of advanced techniques of policy analysis can enable reformers to identify the most effective means to build upon these foundations. Although initially trained in the study of international conflict, he has come to approach this topic from the perspective of theories of public policy. He is especially interested in understanding the response of governmental and nongovernmental organizations to local and regional conflicts. His research demonstrates that well-intentioned interventions of the constituent members of the global conflict policy network (national governments, UN agencies, and humanitarian, development, and conflict resolution NGOs) have routinely been diverted or manipulated by strategically adept leaders whose interests are served by continued conflict.

Professor McGinnis teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in public policy and institutional analysis (Introduction to Theories of Public Policy; Religion, Politics, and Public Policy; Implementation Challenges of Governance Reform), research methods (Introduction to Formal Theory; Research Design), and world politics (Coping with War; Democracy and National Security; Nations, States, and Boundaries). He recently developed a new course on the use of rational choice theory to understand the political consequences of religious organizations.

McGinnis is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. In July 2009 he resumed his former position as Co-Director for the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, an inter-disciplinary research group focused on the study of institutions, development, and governance.

McGinnis received a B.S. in mathematics from the Ohio State University in 1980 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1985. In his early research he used game theory to model arms races, alliances, wars, peace negotiations, and other interactions between domestic and international politics. He has published several articles in political science and international relations journals, as well as chapters in edited volumes. He is co-author, with John T. Williams, of Compound Dilemmas: Democracy, Collective Action, and Superpower Rivalry (University of Michigan Press, 2001) and editor of three volumes of readings on governance issues written by scholars associated with the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. He was co-editor of International Studies Quarterly (1994-98).