Rate My Professor Miguel Centeno

Miguel A. Centeno is the Musgrave Professor of Sociology, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, and Executive Vice-Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Born in Cuba and immigrating to the United States at age 10, he earned a BA in History from Yale College in 1980 (cum laude and with Distinction in the Major), an MBA from the Yale School of Organization and Management in 1987, and a PhD in Sociology from Yale University in 1990 (thesis awarded Distinction). Prior to joining Princeton, he worked as an instructor and teaching fellow in Yale's Department of Sociology from 1984 to 1989. At Princeton since 1990, Centeno advanced from Assistant Professor of Sociology (1990-1997) to Associate Professor (1997-2001), Professor (2001-2013), and Musgrave Professor (2013-present). He chaired the Sociology Department from 2012 to 2017, served as founding Director of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies from 2003 to 2007, Head of Wilson College from 1997 to 2004, Acting Director of the Princeton Program in Latin American Studies in 2009-2010, founder and director of the Princeton University Preparatory Program since 2000, founder of the Research Community on Global Systemic Risk in 2013, and director of the International Networks Archive/Mapping Globalization project since 1999.

Centeno's research specializations include state and nation making in Latin America and the Iberian world, globalization, technocracy, warfare and society, neoliberalism, inequality, and global systemic risks. His key publications feature Democracy within Reason: Technocratic Revolution in Mexico (1994; 2nd ed. 1997), Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America (2002), Global Capitalism (with Joseph N. Cohen, 2010), War and Society (with Elaine Enriquez, 2016), States in the Developing World (edited with Atul Kohli and Deborah J. Yashar, 2017), and the three-volume State and Nation Making in the Iberian World (with Agustín E. Ferraro; Vol. I 2013, Vol. II 2018, Vol. III 2023). Among his highly cited works are The Arc of Neoliberalism (2012) and Artificial Intelligence, Systemic Risks, and Sustainability (2021). He has received the Princeton Presidential Teaching Award (1997), National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1995), Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Research Grant (1997-1998), election to the Sociological Research Association (2005), and Fung Global Fellows (2012-2015), along with multiple Choice Outstanding Academic Book awards. Centeno has served on the American Sociological Association Comparative Historical Section Council (2004-2006) and delivered lectures such as the Conferencia Magistral at Universidad Mayor, Chile (2021).