Assistant Professor
School of International Service
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20016-8071
Telephone: (202) 885-2457
Email: levan@american.edu
Briefly, about me:
I teach courses on African politics and comparative political theory at American University, where I serve as Africa Coordinator for the Comparative and Regional Studies Program in the School of International Service. I also serve as Treasurer for the African Politics Conference Group, a professional association that organizes panels on African politics at the annual conferences of the African Studies Association, the American Political Science Association, and at other academic meetings.
My research focuses on African political institutions, democratization, and political development. I am writing a book that uses veto player theory to explain government performance in Nigeria since independence. Using original qualitative and quantitative data, my empirical tests challenge the conventional wisdom about the impact of regime type, ethnic diversity, and oil on policy outputs. I am working to extend the model to two pairs of other African cases. My findings pose a dilemma for countries that seek to maximize political inclusion: Increasing the number of political actors improves the representativeness of the policy process. However these additional players can both increase the overall costs of particularistic policies and impair the delivery of nationally-oriented collective goods as bargaining becomes more difficult.
Check out my essay “Power Sharing and Inclusive Politics in Africa’s Uncertain Democracies ” in the January 2011 issue of Governance. You can download it for free, courtesy of Wiley publishers. Focusing on the cases of Kenya and Zimbabwe, I argue that power sharing pacts are a problematic solution to flawed elections.