[2] His research focuses on the developing world, with a particular focus on resource wealth and politics, ethnic conflict, and regimes and regime change.
in Middle East Studies and PhD in Political Science from the University of Washington in 1996 and 2002, respectively.
Smith's first book, Hard Times in the Lands of Plenty: Oil Politics in Iran and Indonesia was published in 2007 by Cornell University Press.
[3] His second book, "Rethinking the Resource Curse," was published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press.
He has published articles on the politics of resource wealth in the American Journal of Political Science,[4] Studies in Comparative International Development,[5] Conflict Management and Peace Science,[6] in The Oxford Handbook of State Transformations, and in the Routledge Handbook of Oil Politics.