A. Carl LeVan

CARL LEVAN is Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Dictators and Democracy in African Development: the Political Economy of Good Governance in Nigeria (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and co-editor of African State Governance: Subnational Politics and National Power (Palgrave 2015). His new book is co-authored with Todd Eisenstadt and Tofigh Maboudi, Constituents before Assembly: Participation, Deliberation, and Representation in the Worldwide Crafting of New Constitutions (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Expanding upon their groundbreaking American Political Science Review article, they demonstrate the lasting positive effects of participatory constitution-making on democracy around the world since 1974. LeVan is also the co-editor, with Patrick Ukata, of the Oxford Handbook of Nigerian Politics (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2018).

Other co-authored articles explore property rights and migration in Abuja (with Josiah Olubowale) and the economic consequences of cabinet size (with Assen Assenov). His other research articles have appeared in Governance, Africa Today, Democratization, and Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. His 2013 article in Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding remains one of the most widely read articles on the violent extremist group, Boko Haram.

Prior to receiving his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California—San Diego, he worked as a legislative director for U.S. Representative John Conyers, lectured at the University of Ibadan, and worked as a technical advisor to Nigeria’s National Assembly. He has appeared on MSNBC, the PBS NewsHour, Al Jazeera, BBC World Television, Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! and National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show. He publishes the blog Development4Security at carllevan.com and tweets @Dev4Security.