Field:
    Comparative Politics and International Relations

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

Committee:
    Barbara Geddes (Co-Chair), and Dan Posner (Co-Chair), Kathleen Bawn, Ronald Rogowski, Edward Leamer (Economics)

Date of Completion: September 2010

Contact Information:
    Tyson Roberts
    Princeton University Department of Politics
    130 Corwin Hall
    Princeton, NJ 08544
    Phone: 310.415.6066
    Fax: 609.258.1110

 Curriculum Vitae:
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Dissertation Summary:
    My dissertation explores how changes in the international political
economy affect political change in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular
regime type (democracy vs. dictatorship) and economic development
strategy (statist vs. capitalist). In the dissertation, I develop a game
theoretic formal model to demonstrate the strategic interaction between
African governments, who make political decisions in anticipation of
their effects on the providers of foreign finance, and the allocations
decisions of private investors and official donors, who respond to the
political decisions of those African governments. In the empirical
chapters I test 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:
   The relationship between financial flows (from private investors and
official donors) and political change in developing countries, including
changes in economic policy and political institutions.

Teaching Interests:
     Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Economy, International
Political Economy, Comparative Institutions, International Relations,
International Organizations, African Politics, African Political
Economy, African Development Policy, Politics of Economic Development,
Politics in Developing Countries, Authoritarian Politics, Research
Design, and Game Theory.