Chris Meckstroth is Associate Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. He holds degrees from Harvard and the University of Chicago, where he took his PhD in Political Science. Before coming to Cambridge he taught at Harvard.

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He is an expert in democratic politics and the history of democracy, and co-editor, with Samuel Moyn, of The Cambridge History of Democracy, Vol. III., forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. He has published academic work in leading journals including the American Political Science Review.

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His work focuses on the major political upheavals that have shaken democracies around the world since 2016. His writing sheds new light on recent events and the political challenges of our times by setting them in the longer story of democracy since the twentieth century. He works across many countries and in many different languages, with a focus on the recent breakthrough of right-wing populisms in countries including the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, but his work is also informed by the democratic histories of other countries around the world, from Latin America to South and East Asia.

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He was born and raised in Normal, Illinois, in the heart of the American Midwest, and after graduating from college he worked as a union organiser with hotel workers in New York City before going on to graduate school. His writing often draws on his experience growing up and the story of how his hometown has changed in recent decades to show how regular people in swing districts far from national capitals make sense of politics today and what drives them to vote the way they do.  ​​​​