Field:
    Comparative Politics and International Relations

Dissertation Title:
    Democracy, Development, and the International Poltical Economy: Political Institutions and Investment Financing Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa

Committee:
    Barbara Geddes (Co-Chair), and Dan Posner (Co-Chair)

Date of Completion: June 2010

Contact Information:
    Tyson Roberts
    UCLA Political Science Department
    4289 Bunche Hall
    Los Angeles, California 90095-1472
    Phone: 310-825-4331
    Fax: 310-825-0778

 Curriculum Vitae:
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Dissertation Summary:
    My dissertation explores how changes in the international political economy affect politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular regime type (democracy vs. dictatorship) and economic development strategy (statist vs. capitalist). In the dissertation, he develops a game theoretic formal model to demonstrate the strategic interaction African governments, who make political decisions in anticipation of their effects on the providers of foreign finance, and the investment decisions of providers of foreign finance who respond to the political decisions of those African governments. In the empirical chapters he tests the implications of the model using cross national, time series data, with both political outcomes and investment decisions as dependent variables. The tests include the use of an original data set to operationalize the economic strategy of governments as capitalist or statist.

Research Interests:
   

Teaching Interests:
    Comparative Political Economy, International Political Economy, International Relations, International Organization, African Political Economy, Politics of Economic Development, and Game Theory.