Roderic Ai Camp


Roderic Ai Camp is an American academic specialized in Mexican studies. He is a frequent consultant to international media including the BBC, The [New York Times], The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and was once a contributing editor to Microsoft Encarta.
He has briefed several institutions, including the United States House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and at least five U.S. ambassadors to Mexico for the U.S. Department of State. Currently, he is the Philip McKenna Professor of the Pacific Rim at Claremont McKenna College, in California, United States.

Biography

Camp was born in Colfax, Washington, to Ortho O. Camp, a small businessman, and Helen Camp, a counselor. He has served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. He and his wife, librarian Emily Ellen Morse married October 1, 1966. They have two children: Christopher and Alexander.
Camp graduated with both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in International Affairs from George Washington University and completed a doctorate degree in Comparative Politics and History at the University of Arizona. He tracks his interest in Mexican topics back to his years growing up among Mexican immigrants in Orange, a small citrus farming community outside Los Angeles.
He started his academic career at Central College in Iowa and later joined the Department of Political Science at Tulane University in 1991. He has also worked as a visiting scholar at El Colegio de México, as a fellow and member of the advisory board of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and as an adjunct fellow of the Mexico Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Over the course of his studies he has received a Fulbright Fellowship on three occasions, two major grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and a Howard Heinz Foundation fellowship.
On 15 October 2009, Camp received a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from St. Olaf College.
In September, 2017, he received the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest award the Mexican government can award a foreigner, for his contributions to Mexicans and Mexico.
In 2017, he became a Global Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution.

Selected publications

Camp has written more than thirty books, most of them on topics related to Mexico. Eight of them have received "Outstanding" designations by Choice magazine, a publication of the Association of College & Research Libraries of the American Library Association.
  • The Role of Economists in Policy Making: A Comparative Study of Mexico and the United States
  • Mexico's Leaders, Their Education and Recruitment.
  • The Making of a Government: The Socialization of Political Leaders in Post-Revolutionary Mexico. Winner of the "Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 1985".
  • Intellectuals and the State in Twentieth Century Mexico. Winner of the "Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 1986".
  • Mexico's Political Stability, the Next Five Years.
  • Memoirs of a Mexican Politician.
  • Entrepreneurs and Politics in Twentieth Century Mexico.
  • Mexican Political Biographies, 1884–1935.
  • Generals in the Palacio, the Military in Modern Mexico.
  • Who's Who in Mexico Today. Winner of the "Choice Outstanding Reference Book, 1988".
  • Politics in Mexico, the Democratic Consolidation. Winner of the "Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 1993" and recommended in the Council on Foreign Relations Reading List on Mexican Politics blog by Shannon O'Neil, August 18, 2009.
  • The Successor, A Political Thriller.
  • Mexican Political Biographies, 1935–1993. Winner of the "American Reference Book Annual Outstanding Reference Book" and "Choice Outstanding Academic Book".
  • Political Recruitment Across Two Centuries, Mexico, 1884-1999.
  • Crossing Swords, Politics and Religion in Mexico.
  • Editor, Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America.
  • Mexico's Mandarins, Crafting a Power Elite for the 21st Century.
  • Mexico's Military on the Democratic Stage.
  • Politics in Mexico, The Democratic Consolidation.
  • The Metamorphosis of Leadership in a Democratic Mexico.
  • Mexico, What Everyone Needs to Know.
  • Mexican Political Biographies, 1939–2009 4th ed. Winner of the "Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 2011"
  • Oxford Handbook of Mexican Politics.
  • Politics in Mexico, Democratic Consolidation or Decline?.
  • Mexico, What Everyone Needs to Know" 2nd ed..
  • Politics in Mexico, The Path of a New Democracy.