A. Carl LeVan

                                                       A. Carl LeVan, Ph.D.                                      

                                                       American University

                                                       Assistant Professor, School of International Service

                                                       Chair, Council on African Studies

                                                       Africa Coordinator, Comparative & Regional Studies

                                                       4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW

                                                       Washington, DC 20016-8071

                                                       levan@american.edu

                                                       Office hours fall spring 2009:

                                                       Tuesday 3-6, Thursday 2-4

                                                       Asbury, room 224B

Dissertation

Dictators, Democrats, and Development in Nigeria

I dispute explanations for government performance in Nigeria based on regime type or fiscal resources. To test my theory that the number of policy actors better predicts performance, I build a veto player model that applies across regimes and to outcomes besides policy stability. Qualitative and quantitative analyses show that my theory better predicts policy outputs. Since Nigeria’s rules of political inclusion impact the number of veto players, my findings pose a dilemma: Increasing the number of political actors improves the representativeness of the policy process. But introducing surplus preferences adds new payments to policy actors and impairs the delivery of public goods. I measure performance using original time-series data on education, fiscal discipline, and the judiciary covering four decades.

Teaching                                                                                          Curriculum Vitae

Publications

• “Civil Society Autonomy and Action During Nigeria’s Democratization” (under review)
• “Understanding African Responses to AFRICOM” (under review)
• "Coalitions of Constraint in Nigeria's Authoritarian Regimes" (under review)
• “Next Steps for Nigeria’s Democracy,” International Affairs Forum, January 2008.
• "Politics in Nigeria," (co-authored with Robert Mundt and Aborisade Oladimeji) in Comparative Politics Today (ninth edition). Gabriel Almond, Bingham Powell, Kaare Strøm and Russell Dalton, editors. Longman (July 2007).
• "Federal Structure, Decentralization and Government Performance in Nigeria," in Nigerian Federalism in Crisis: Critical Perspectives and Political Options, edited by Ebere Onwudiwe and Rotimi Suberu. (Ibadan: Program on Ethnic & Federal Studies, 2005).
• "Elections in Nigeria: Is the Third Time a Charm?" co-authored with Titi Pitso and Bod Adebo in The Journal of African Elections, Vol. 2., No. 2 (Oct. 2003): 30-47.  Published by the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa

• In Democracy's Shadow: The Secret World of National Security.  Co-edited with Marcus Raskin. (New York: Nation Books, 2005).

       Click here for information about the book and the National Security State Seminar at George Washington University.

• April 28, 2008 op-ed in The Hill, "Keeping the Baloney Out of Africa"
• November 9, 2005 op-ed in The Hill, the Capitol Hill newspaper: "Be Careful Libby Case Doesn't Lead to More Secrecy"

Working Papers

“Decentralization and Corruption in Nigeria's Education Sector," presentation at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting 2008.  Please email me for a current draft.

"Current and Future Challenges for Nigeria's Electoral Framework," presentation at the Nigerian Peoples Forum, Washington, DC, May 2006.

Carl LeVan / Political Science Department / Last Modified: 1/13/09