Professor Kurtz has research and teaching interests in the areas of comparative politics, democratization,  political economy and development, with a focus on Latin America and South Africa. His publications have appeared in such journals as American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, the British Journal of Political Science, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Politics, Politics & Society, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Social Forces, and Theory and Society. His books, entitled Free Market Democracy and the Chilean and Mexican Countryside and Latin American State Building in Comparative Perspective: Social Foundations of Institutional Order are available at Cambridge University Press. Other ongoing research examines the role of the state in economic development, the cross-national measurement of state capability or governance, the relationship between natural resource wealth and political regime, as well as the effects of property rights regimes on inequality and development.