CHAOS

Margaret Levi
Department of Political Science
Box 353530
Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 543-7947

Center for Comparative and Historical Analysis of Organizations and States

(CHAOS)

CHAOS Affiliates

Political Science

Margaret Levi, Director, Chris Adolph, James Caporaso, Rachel Cichowski, Anthony Gill, Ellis Goldberg, Stephen Hanson, Aseem Prakash, Michael Ward, Susan Whiting

Economics

Yoram Barzel

Evans School

Mary Kay Gugerty

Sociology

Edgar Kiser, Steve Pfaff, Katherine Stovel

Staff

Sharon Redeker

Mission Statement

The Center for Comparative and Historical Analysis of Organizations and States (CHAOS) at the University of Washington is an interdisciplinary group of distinguished political scientists, sociologists and economists with a shared interest in problems of governance. We are committed to developing social science tools meant to improve the capacities of states and organizations so that they better serve all of their constituencies. What arrangements are best able to resolve conflicts--ethnic, religious, racial, class? What best contribute to economic growth? How can institutions be designed to encourage political and social freedoms without endangering political stability? How can these institutions be made fair, responsive and trustworthy from the perspective of all they are meant to serve?

We ground our answers in an approach that puts present problems in historical and comparative perspective. In order to understand what is possible, we need to understand what has been tried and failed--and why. We also must be able to theorize about paths not yet considered or taken.

Activities

Activities

In addition to the informal seminars held among the faculty members to report on work-in-progress, CHAOS and Cambridge University Press have co-sponsored the following workshops around penultimate drafts of book manuscripts by major social science scholars.

2000-2001
Stathis Kalyvas, Yale University: The Logic of Violence in Civil War

John Huber, Columbia University, and Charles Shipan, University of Iowa, Deliberate Discretion? The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy

2001-2002
Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University, Rootless Cosmopolitans

Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota, From Santiago to Seattle: Transnational Advocacy Networks Restructuring World Politics

Torben Iversen, Harvard University, Capitalism and Welfare: The Political Economy of Social Protection

2002-2003
Pablo Spiller, Berkeley, and Mariano Tomassi, San Andreas, The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy: A Transactions Approach with Application to Argentina

Daniel Treisman, UCLA, Decentralization, Governance, and Economic Performance

2003-2004
Peter Gourevitch, UCSD, and James Shinn, Explaining Corporate Governance Systems: the Role of Politics

Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan, Environmental Politics and Institutional Choice: Forestry and Wildlife Policies in the Developing World

2004-2005

Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University, Guillermo Rosas, Washington University, Liz Zechmeister, UC Davis, and Kirk Hawkins, Brigham Young University, Patterns of Party Competition in Latin America

Anna Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan, Party Competition and State Politicization

2005-2006

Ken Roberts, Cornell University, "Changing Course: Parties, Populism,and Political Representation in Latin America's Neoliberal Era"

Chris Adolph, University of Washington, The Dilemma of Discretion: Career Ambitions and the Politics of Central Banking

Nicholas Sambanis, Yale University, Causes of Civil Wars

2006-7

Maria Victoria Murillo, Columbia University, Voice and Light: Political Competition and Partisanship in the Reform of Latin American Public Utilities

Pauline Jones-Luong and Erika Weinthal, "Enriching the State: Resource Wealth, Ownership Structure and Institutional Capacity"

Steven Wilkinson, Duke University, "Colonization, Democracy and Conflict"

2007-8

Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Federico Estévez, and Beatriz Magaloni. Strategies of Vote Buying: Poverty, Democracy, and Social Transfers in Mexico.

Seattle Seminar at Yale

James Mahoney, Northwestern University, "Colonialism and Develpment: American in Comparative Perspective"

Stephen Hanson, University of Washington, "Ideology, Uncertainty, and Democracy: Party Formation in the 3rd Republic France, Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet
Russia"