Desh Girod on Puerto Rico, Foreign Aid, and the Paradox of “Restoration”

A lot of political arguments aren’t really arguments—they’re translations. The same word can land as a warning to one audience and a promise to another. In this conversation, Professor Desh Girod of Georgetown helps explain why: how people come to hear authority, hierarchy, and “democracy” through different historical and emotional logics—and why that gap has become one of the defining problems of American politics.
We start with the experiences that shaped his career: an early fascination with cities and policy, a formative master’s program at Trinity College Dublin during the 2000–2001 political moment, and the realization that research and writing were a way to think honestly about power. From there, Girod traces a through-line from growing up in Puerto Rico and asking “who gets to decide?” to his work on foreign aid and post-conflict reconstruction, and finally to White Democracy, his project on why authoritarian language can register as democratic renewal.
Along the way, he offers unusually grounded advice for students: worry less about “the perfect plan,” read deeply instead of skimming, protect “quiet mind” time, and treat writing as a craft that carries across careers—even in a world increasingly built for distraction.

—Desh Girod is an Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Social Justice

Origins: The Problem That Pulled Him In
Ben Wolf: To start at the beginning: what problem were you trying to solve—be it intellectually or morally—when you first got into political science? And what early experiences made you interested in that problem?

Desh Girod: My interest in political science as a field really emerged when I was doing a master’s degree at Trinity College Dublin. I had long been interested in policy, and as an undergrad I interned at the mayor’s office in Philadelphia—that was formative. I got curious about how you make cities work: how diverse dynamics can translate into creativity and quality of life across the board.
I was fascinated by cities—how different places handle different challenges. I went to Trinity in part because I was interested in their coverage of conflict resolution and mediation, thinking it would be useful for city-level policy work. But while I was there, world politics was everywhere.
This was 2000–2001—during the Bush v. Gore election. In Ireland, there were questions being asked about the United States and its international role that weren’t being asked in the U.S., and that was striking. I was in Ireland just before 9/11; I came back to the United States after my master’s, and suddenly the U.S. was thrust into world politics in a way I hadn’t experienced in my lifetime.
Having been in Ireland, I had been thinking deeply about world politics. I knew I wanted to go into political science as a career. On one hand, I thought it would make me a better policymaker—knowing what scholars know, going in with that background. But I also got really interested in writing and research through the master’s program.
I remember hearing someone say: if you’re spending your Friday nights in the library and you find yourself excited—reading, writing—then you have the makings of a scholar. I paid attention to how much I loved putting thoughts on paper.
One of my advisors told me: if you don’t do a PhD now, you might not do it later—once you’re in your 30s with a mortgage and other obligations, it’s hard to return. She encouraged me to apply sooner rather than later, and I got into Stanford. I was very excited to be there, and my interests unfolded from that.
But really, it was those experiences—being an undergrad in the mayor’s office, then Ireland and Europe—real life experiences linked to what I was learning in the classroom. That combination of life experience and theory set me on this path.

Advice: Skills, Anxiety, and “Trusting the Present”
BW: I do want to ask more about the work you did then and are doing now. But I’m also curious—looking at your career and educational trajectory, was there something you would change? Or something you wish someone had told you earlier?

DG: If I could go back to past me, one thing I’m glad I did was stick with political science as a major. A lot of people told me: unless you want to be a lawyer, political science won’t translate into a job.
But one of my early advisors told me to pick a major based on substance and where I would have the best professors—people who would challenge me to write well, speak well, and think critically and analytically. So I didn’t worry too much about whether it translated directly into a job.
Over my lifetime I’ve seen stress increase among undergraduates—this pressure to choose majors with an obvious practical emphasis. But I still think it’s true: if you develop the skills to think, write, speak, and present, they carry you across many different jobs—especially as the world changes.
In terms of what I’d do differently: nothing jumps to mind. But generally, I wish I worried less about what the future would look like. I wish I had more confidence that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing in that moment—that there wasn’t some predefined path, and I wasn’t behind.
I say that because I didn’t have a master plan. I stumbled into the idea of a PhD. I can’t think of anyone in my family with a PhD—certainly no professors—so I didn’t grow up with that as an option. Being open to possibilities made it an option.
So I’d tell myself: trust your instincts in the present, and carry less anxiety about the future. Of course, everyone’s situation is different. I was privileged at every step—full scholarships as an undergrad, funded PhD programs—so there were structural factors that made it easier to be at peace. But I still wish I’d worried less.

Puerto Rico, Agency, and the Aid System
BW: That’s very insightful, thank you. You’ve described growing up in Puerto Rico as formative. How did that vantage point shape your instincts about power, legitimacy, and the question of who gets to decide?

DG: That’s a sharp—and perceptive—question. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Over a lifetime, you peel back layers and keep relearning what you thought you knew about yourself.
Growing up in Puerto Rico, I was always interested in the relationship with the United States and the inequality between states. Puerto Ricans are born into American citizenship, but you don’t have all the same rights of citizenship as someone born in Pennsylvania. Becoming aware of that at a young age got me interested in agency—who gets to decide.
I had questions about the decision-making power the United States has over policies that affect everyday life in Puerto Rico. Those questions stayed with me.
I got interested in foreign aid in part because I was curious why outcomes differ—why the U.S. invests more aid in some contexts than others. During my PhD, the U.S. had intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan, and massive state-building operations were unfolding. I would hear policymakers and think tanks talk about “looking for the local will to reform,” and it always sounded patronizing—and odd—like some people want reform and some don’t.
It struck me that we needed to understand incentives: the structures and pressures people are under. In other words, if it were me in that situation—if it were any of us—we might choose the same things under the same pressures. That intuition informed my book: trying to understand the structures that incentivize the use of aid in one way versus another.
I did fieldwork and talked to people about reconstruction processes in places like Uganda and Mozambique. But after working on aid for so long, I became frustrated—with the system and with the narrow question of “how do we make aid work better?”
I started asking: why this aid system at all? Where does it come from? Why do we invest so much thinking in aid when results are often weak—and when aid is a small proportion of overall financial flows?
That pushed me toward bigger-picture questions—looking at countries not only in terms of where they sit in an international structure, but how they arrived where they are historically. You can see imperial dynamics repeating: imperial powers justified their projects with discourses similar to those used for foreign aid and development today. Different nouns, same logic.
So I’ve become interested in how much of the present is a repetition of that history, even if it looks slightly different. And it’s all rooted in that early experience: seeing the United States through the prism of Puerto Rico.

White Democracy: When “Dictator” Sounds Like “Restoration”
BW: You touched on it just now, but in White Democracy you’re asking why authoritarian language can land as “democratic restoration.” What’s the simplest way to explain that paradox to a reader who hasn’t spent years inside the literature?

DG: You probably remember during the presidential campaign, when Donald Trump used the language of being a “dictator for a day”—or “dictator on day one.”
For a lot of people—on the left, in progressive circles, on the coasts—it sounded like he was saying the quiet part out loud, and that it would be bad for him politically. “Dictatorship” has a negative resonance for much of U.S. history.
But if you look at reporting that day—people interviewed at rallies—you heard responses like: “Maybe this is exactly what the country needs.” “We need it to restore democracy.” One person described it like a parent cleaning up a mess.
There’s a sense among many supporters that the system is unfair, that it’s a mess—that the deep state and corruption are real—and that something hierarchical might be required to restore democracy. So you hear the same words, and they mean completely different things. For one audience, it’s a threat to democracy; for the other, it’s a savior of democracy.
That’s fascinating to me. How do we hear the same words so differently? That’s what I’m writing about in the book.

Teaching: Fresh Questions and Global Classrooms
BW: Alongside that research and writing, you’re also a professor. How has being around younger students—who ask you questions about your work—shaped your process? What have you learned from your students?

DG: I learn from students all the time—especially as I’ve gotten older and seen multiple generations of students. Students ask good questions. As professors, we can lose track of the big picture; students coming fresh to the material often ask the most important questions.
It’s invigorating. And at Georgetown, we have students from all over the world, so I’m constantly learning about different politics through their experiences.
It’s a mix of seeing students encounter ideas for the first time and hearing how their life experiences shape their relationship to those ideas. And Georgetown students tend to be deeply engaged—they read, they come prepared, they want to engage. It’s been a privilege to spend my career here with such students.
Sometimes I also build courses around literature I’ve been wanting to read, so I’m reading it with the students. That’s a great process of continued learning and staying on top of the material—you want to deliver the best every time.

Student Success: Reading, “Deep Time,” and Distraction
BW: To close—since you’ve seen many students go on to work or further study—what skills and habits do the most successful students tend to have? And what downfalls do you see most often?

DG: I can’t say enough about the value of reading—books, essays, periodicals like The Atlantic and The New Yorker. It’s accessing incredible minds. In a way, it’s like what you’re doing with The Pathway Blog: talking with one amazing mind after another as you move through texts.
Developing the habit of reading—whatever ideas you’re interested in—keeps your mind rich and makes the world more interesting.
A lot of students move through material quickly now. AI can summarize things; historically, Cliff Notes were always a thing. But you miss so much. Making time to read is powerful.
And it’s also about focus. It’s almost cliché, but distractibility is a huge challenge—being so connected to phones, constant stimulation. I worry we lose track of the big picture and make less well-informed decisions because we know ourselves less. Time that could be spent thinking, reading, reflecting becomes time scrolling and absorbing everyone else’s life.
I can’t emphasize enough what I’ve derived from walking, thinking, reading—deep time of the mind, with a quiet mind. That sets you up to do many things with more self-understanding and confidence.

Reading Recommendations: Du Bois, Historians, and Getting Outside the Journals
BW: Professor, I’m really grateful for your time. I like to close Pathway conversations by asking: for someone interested in following your work—or a book that influenced you—what would you recommend?

DG: Hard to name a single one.
In a way, I stumbled too late in my career onto the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois. I learn something new every time I read him—his work, his life, the context of his writing. There are similarities to challenges we’re facing now. Everything I’ve read by Du Bois has been extraordinary for me—personally and intellectually.
I’ve also been reading a lot of historians, which has helped my work tremendously. Stepping away from constantly keeping up with mainstream political science journals and engaging other disciplines has been valuable.
That’s how I ended up reading Du Bois, but also historians like Quinn Slobodian--Globalists is a powerful book for understanding neoliberal ideas: where they came from, who held them, how they were contested, and how they became so resonant that we now hold them without thinking.
And of course Heather Cox Richardson—her books are revealing, not just intellectually but culturally, for understanding what it is to be an American. When I read her, I find myself asking questions I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
I also love Daniel Immerwahr’s work--Thinking Small, on community development programs and how they relate to modernization ideas in foreign aid, and How to Hide an Empire, which goes from Puerto Rico to the early expansion of the United States. There’s a lot of creative work that’s been inspiring and helpful.