Diane Davis is Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism at Harvard University. Among her areas of research are urban development, comparative international development and cities in conflict. She is also interested in historic preservation, urban social movements, fragmented sovereignty and urban governance. Recently her work has focused on the transformation of cities in the global south and the social and political conflicts that have emerged in response to globalisation. She is author of Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Temple University Press 1994 – published in Spanish as El Leviatán Urbano: La Ciudad de México en el Siglo XX, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999) and Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2004). She is also co-editor of Irregular Armed Forces and their Role in Politics and State Formation (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Spaces (Indiana University Press, 2011).
