Expertise: Political economy, institutional dynamics and institutional reform, African politics

512-232-7249
Send Email »

Senior Fellow

Professor Boone specializes in comparative politics, with an emphasis on theories of political economy and economic development. She has conducted research on industrial, commercial, and land tenure policies in West Africa, where her work has been funded by the Social Science Research Council, American Council of Learned Societies, Fulbright, the World Bank, and the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Her current research focuses on territorial politics and rural property rights in contemporary Africa, with particular emphasis on the role of property rights in shaping electoral and political dynamics. She teaches courses on globalization, comparative political economy, qualitative research methods in Political Science, and African politics.

Professor Boone has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Comparative Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), well as of review boards for the National Science Foundation, Fulbright, and the Social Science Research Council. She is a member of the Africa Regional Advisory Panel of the Social Science Research Council; Secretary of the African Politics Conference Group, an APSA-affiliated research network; Vice Chair of APSA’s Comparative Democratization Section; and an elected member of the APSA Executive Council (2005-7 term). Professor Boone was also Treasurer, Board Member, and President of the West Africa Research Association (2005 -6), which overseas the West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal.

She has been Visiting Fulbright Professor, Beijing Foreign Studies University, People’s Republic of China; Visiting Professor and Researcher, Centro de Investigación y Docencias Economicas (CIDE), Mexico City, Mexico; Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Centre Ivoirien de Recherche Economique et Sociale, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire; and Visiting Researcher at the Centre Des Etudes Superieures en Gestion, Dakar, Senegal.

Professor Boone is author of Political Topographies of the African State: Rural Authority and Institutional Choice (Cambridge, 2003), which was winner of the Society for Comparative Research Mattei Dogan Award in 2005, as well as a finalist for the African Studies Association Herskovitz award in 2004, and a runner-up for the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science Association’s Luebbert Award in 2004. Professor Boone is also author of Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in Senegal, 1930 -1985 (Cambridge, 1992), a finalist for the Herskovitz award in 1993. She is also the author of articles on economic development, institutional reform, HIV/AIDS, and political transitions that have appeared in Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Development Studies, World Development, African Economic History, Africa Today, American Anthropologist, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, and the Journal of Modern African Studies.

Prof. Boone received her B.A. from the University of California at San Diego and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Selected Research:

• "Africa's New Territorial Politics: Regionalism and the Open Economy in Cote d'Ivoire," African Studies Review, April 2007
• "Property and Constitutional Order: Land Tenure Reform and the Future of the African State," African Affairs, 2007
• Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice, Cambridge University Press, 2003

Selected Project

• "Land Conflict in Kenya," East Africa, 2007