Javier is the Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College, where he specializes in comparative politics, democratic backsliding, and Latin American governance. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and completed his Ph.D. in political science at Harvard University in 1996.
His research investigates the institutional mechanisms of democratic erosion, executive aggrandizement, and party system dynamics, with a primary geographic focus on Venezuela and Cuba. Corrales has contributed critical analytical frameworks to the study of hybrid regimes, examining how incumbent administrations systematically manipulate legal instruments and institutional capture to weaken constitutional checks and balances from within. His prominent publications include Fixing Democracy: Why Constitutional Change Often Fails to Enhance Democracy in Latin America and his foundational book Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism (Brookings Institution Press, 2023), which explores the structural degradation of state accountability.
Beyond his core scholarship on democratic decline, Corrales also researches the political economy of energy and the politics of sexuality, co-editing The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America and publishing on regional LGBTQ+ rights expansion. He has served as a Fulbright Scholar in Caracas and Bogotá, acted as an institutional consultant for global organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank, and regularly contributes expert geopolitical analysis to international media.