Political Science Faculty

David Buckley

Professor, Director of the Boisi Center

Photo of David Buckley

David Buckley

Ph.D.

Contact

Telephone: 617-552-1862

Email: david.buckley@bc.edu

Education

  • B.A. University of Virginia
  • M.A. Queens Univeristy Belfast
  • Ph.D., Georgetown University

Research Interests

Religion and politics

Democratic resilience

Southeast Asian politics

American politics

Boisi Center Website Curriculum Vitae

Biography

David T. Buckley is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, where he serves as professor in the department of Political Science. His research focuses on religion as a source of democratic backsliding and resilience in comparative perspective, with special focus on the United States and Southeast Asia. Most recently, he is the author, with Steven Brooke, of Protection at the Margins: How the Catholic Church Shielded Communities from Populist Violence in the Philippine Drug War (Cambridge University Press 2026), which draws on extensive fieldwork and original data to explain how grassroots religious networks intervened in Rodrigo Duterte’s “drug war” in the Philippines. His previous book, Blessing America First: Religion, Populism, and Foreign Policy in the Trump Administration (Columbia University Press 2024), analyzed the effect of populist politics on the place of religion in U.S. foreign policy. Blessing America First received the International Studies Association’s 2025 Book Award for Religion and International Relations, and was a 2025 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. In other research, Buckley has examined links between Christian nationalism and political violence on January 6th, the effect of Laudato Si’ on environmental views of American Catholics, and public responses to including clergy in police review boards. His work has appeared in leading journals of political science including the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Political Behavior, and Comparative Politics.

In addition to this research, Buckley has served as a leader in advancing the public understanding of religion and politics. He was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow (2016-17), serving as Senior Advisor in the Department of State’s Office of Religion in Global Affairs. He is past chair of the American Political Science Association’s Religion and Politics Section, and current Board member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. His research and writing has appeared in media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, as well as America and Commonweal. From 2021-2026, he directed the Center for Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville.

Buckley received his PhD in Government from Georgetown University, where he conducted research in conjunction with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He completed a Masters in Comparative Ethnic Conflict at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied the role of churches in post-conflict peacebuilding as a U.S.-Ireland Alliance Scholar. He studied Political & Social Thought at the University of Virginia, combining coursework in Government & Foreign Affairs with Religious Studies. 

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