Dr Riccardo Pelizzo is a Professor and the Acting Dean in the Graduate School of Public Policy at Nazarbayev University.

Dr Pelizzo is an internationally recognized political development specialist.
Dr Pelizzo’s research focuses on issues of political development, institutional reform and institutional performance in developing countries. After designing measures and benchmarks for assessing parliaments’ capacity and performance, he is currently devising several diagnostic tools to measure political stability and other dimensions of good governance.

Dr Pelizzo is the Associate Editor of Politics and Policy. He is the recipient of several fellowships, scholarships, competitive grants and awards.  In addition to editing 3 volumes, Dr Pelizzo has authored 17 monographs and more than 60 peer reviewed articles. His studies have appeared or been translated into 14 languages (Arabic, Bahasa, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Kazakh and Vietnamese).

In addition to keeping an active research agenda, he has engaged academic and non-academic audiences in 27 countries and has provided expert opinion to constitutional drafters, institutional reformers, and legislatures in developing countries from Africa, Asia and the Pacific region.