Alfred P. Montero is an associate professor of political science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 at Carleton College

Carleton College

Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...

, specializing in comparative politics

Comparative politics

Comparative politics is a subfield of political science, characterized by an empirical approach based on the comparative method. Arend Lijphart argues that comparative politics does not have a substantive focus in itself, but rather a methodological one: it focuses on "the how but does not specify...

. He has also done in-depth studies of Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 and Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, and is the faculty director of an off-campus studies program at Carleton that focuses on the European Union as well as European Political Economy at the subnational level. Montero is the adviser of the Posse Foundation

Posse Foundation

The Posse Foundation is an American nonprofit organization that identifies, recruits, and trains student leaders from public high schools to form multicultural teams called "Posses" of 10 to 12 Posse Scholars...

 scholars program at Carleton.

Montero was a double-major in Political Science and Latin American Studies University of Miami

University of Miami

The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...

, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1990. He received a PhD in Political Science with Distinction from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1997. He is married to renowned Spanish linguist Mar Valdecantos, whom he met at a bullfight in Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

, Spain, while conducting research for his first book.

Books by Alfred Montero

• Shifting States in Global Markets: Subnational Industrial Policy in Contemporary Brazil and Spain (Penn State University Press
  Penn State University Press
  The Penn State University Press, also called Penn State Press was established in 1956, and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State University and is a division of the Penn State University Library system...
  
  , 2002).
• Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America, co-edited w/ David Samuels (University of Notre Dame Press
  University of Notre Dame Press
  The University of Notre Dame Press is a university press that is part of the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States.-External links:*...
  
  , 2004).
• Brazilian Politics: Reforming a Democratic State in a Changing World (Polity Press, 2005).