Refereed Books

When Democracies Deliver: Governance Reform in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

  • Winner of the Herbert Simon Book Award from the Public Administration Section of the American Political Science Association.
  • Winner of the Donna Lee van Cott Best Book Prize awarded by the Political Institutions and Processes Section of the Latin American Studies Association
  • Winner of the Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize awarded by IPSA’s RC27 – Structure and Organization of Government (SOG), sponsor of the journal Governance
  • Winner of the 2020 SPAR Best Book Award in Public Administration by ASPA
  • Reviewed in Perspectives on Politics, Democratization, and Latin American Politics and Society

Refereed Articles

“Calibrating Autonomy: How bureaucratic autonomy influences government quality in Brazil” (with Francis Fukuyama). Governance (2024)

“The Global Survey of Public Servants: Evidence from 1,300,000 Public Servants in 1,300 Government Institutions in 23 Countries”  (with Christian Schuster, Kim Sass Mikkelsen, Daniel Rogger, Francis Fukuyama, Zahid Hasnain, Dinsha Mistree, Jan Meyer-Sahling, Katherine Bersch, Kerenssa Kay). Public Administration Review (2023).

“Bureaucratic Autonomy” (with Francis Fukuyama).  Annual Review of Political Science (2023). 

“Patronage and Presidential Coalition Formation” (with Felix Lopez and Matthew M. Taylor). Political Research Quarterly (2022).

“Responding to COVID-19 Through Surveys of Public Servants” (with Christian Schuster,  Lauren Weitzman, Kim Sass Mikkelsen, Jan Meyer‐Sahling, Katherine Bersch, Francis Fukuyama, Patricia Paskov, Daniel Rogger, Dinsha Mistree, and Kerenssa Kay). Public Administration Review, (80)5: 792–796 (2020).

“Making Inroads: Infrastructure, State Capacity, and Chinese Dominance in Latin American Development” (with Riitta-Ilona Koivumaeki). Studies in Comparative International Development 54: 323–345 (2019).

“State Capacity, Bureaucratic Politicization, and Corruption in the Brazilian State” (with Sérgio Praça and Matthew M. Taylor). Governance, 30 (1): 105-124 (2017).

“The Merits of Problem-Solving over Powering: Governance Reform in Brazil and Argentina” Comparative Politics, 48 (2): 205-225 (2016).

“Measuring Governance: Implications of Conceptual Choices” (with Sandra BoteroEuropean Journal of Development Research 26 (1): 124-141 (2014).

“Identifying Transparency” (with Gregory Michener) Information Polity 18 (3): 233-242 (2013).

Refereed Book Chapter

Neoliberal Reform of Transport Institutions in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile: The Tortoise Beats the Hare.” State Making and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain, Volume 3: The Neoliberal State and Beyond, edited by Miguel Centeno and Agustin Ferraro, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

“Bureaucratic Capacity and Political Autonomy Within National States: Mapping the Archipelago of Excellence in Brazil” (with Sérgio Praça and Matthew M. Taylor). 2017. States in the Developing World, edited by Miguel Angel Centeno, Atul Kohli and Deborah Yashar, Cambridge University Press.

  • AULAblog.net (American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies) post on our findings here
  • Folha de São Paulo on our findings here and here

Working Papers and Other Projects

“Conceptualizing the Quality of Transparency” (with Gregory Michener). Working Paper no. 49, Political Methodology Working Paper Series of the IPSA Committee on Concepts & Methods.