Paul Dragos Aligica

Dr. Paul Dragos Aligica is a Senior Research Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is also KPMG Professor of Governance at the University of Bucharest and a Senior Nonresident Scholar with the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2023, Aligica was elected a Member of The Academy of Europe - Academia Europea.

Aligica received his PhD in Political Science from Indiana University Bloomington and specializes in governance theory, institutional analysis, and political philosophy with a special focus on alternative economic and governance systems. His many publications include Governing Differences: Social Diversity, Polycentric Political Economy and Modus Vivendi (Edward Elgar, 2025) coauthored with Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, Public Governance and the Classical Liberal Perspective: Political Economy Foundations (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Public Entrepreneurship, Citizenship, and Self-Governance (Cambridge University Press 2018).

He has written for the Wall Street Journal Europe, Geopolitical Intelligence Services (GIS) and a wide variety of academic journals, including American Political Science Review, Public Choice, Revue française d’economie, Social Philosophy & Policy, Constitutional Political Economy, Economic Affairs, Society, East European Economics, Comparative Strategy, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Governance: International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions. 

In addition to his academic work, he has considerable consultancy experience with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Bank (WB), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and a variety of European Union (EU) organizations.

For further publications by Aligica, visit his website.