About

Erin McDonnell is the Notre Dame du Lac Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. She is a theorist whose research engages Organizational, Political, Cultural, and Economic Sociology. Her work focuses on how social organization affects economic outcomes, from consumer groups to administrative capacity in African states. She recently published “Budgetary Units: A Weberian Approach to Consumption” in The American Journal of Sociology. This article rethinks organization within consumption, arguing that orienting research toward the analysis of budgetary units makes visible more general social patterns of consumption across diverse contexts. Other current work takes a sociological approach to examining the historical changes and group dynamics patterning notions of fairness in market pricing behaviors.

Her current work on state capacity and development in Africa observes that states have a high degree of internal variation in their administrative capacities and organizational cultures.

KDR Assistant(s):
Eric Derr
Ben Martin

Thematic Interests

Governance; state administration; international comparative sociology; development; elite migration; classical social theory

Current Research

Her book manuscript, "Subcultural Bureaucracy," examines niches of effective governance within conventionally weak states, arguing that the conditions that support emergent cultures of Weberian-style bureaucracy—in places like Ghana—are different from those associated with the hegemonic bureaucratic administration familiar in the West.

Countries
Regions
Other Accomplishments & Recognitions
Mon, Aug 30, 2021
Kellogg Undergraduate Student Programs Open House
Ellis Adjei Adams, Edward (Ted) Beatty, Paolo G. Carozza, Michael Coppedge, Abby Córdova, Diane Desierto, Eva Dziadula, Anne Foley, Mariah Horvath, Erin Metz McDonnell, Terence McDonnell, Paul Perrin, Patrizio Piraino, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán
Apr 17 to 19, 2016
From Aid to Accompaniment
Jaimie Bleck, Matt Bloom, Paolo G. Carozza, Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, Paul Farmer, Rev. Daniel G. Groody, CSC, Rev. Gustavo Gutiérrez, OP, Matthew Hing, Terence Johnson, Fr. Emmanuel Katongole, Tracy L. Kijewski-Correa, Erin Metz McDonnell, Terence McDonnell, Carolyn R. Nordstrom, Steve Reifenberg, Sara Sievers