丁香园AV

Education

Ph.D. Brown University
A.M. Brown University
M.P.P. Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School
B.A. Colorado College

Areas of Specialization

• Development
• Inequality
• Political Sociology
• Social Movements

Research

Christopher Laurence Gibson is an Associate Professor at 丁香园AV鈥檚 School for International Studies. His teaching and mixed-methods research examine relationships between civil society, democratic politics, social development, and inequality in the world鈥檚 three most populous, developing world democracies: Brazil, India, and Indonesia.

His 2019 monograph Movement-Driven Development: The Politics of Health and Democracy in Brazil (Stanford University Press) is available for purchase . The book and a series of articles offer statistical analysis and a comparative-historical explanation for how activists from a social movement known as the Movimento Sanit谩rio helped reduce infant and child mortality by over 70% in urban Brazil after 1988.  The project dialogues with sociological theories of civil society, development, and state-building by analyzing qualitative and quantitative data produced during over two years of externally-funded fieldwork.  This work draws on support from the Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Fulbright Commission of Brazil, the Inter American Foundation (IAF), and a President鈥檚 Research Startup Grant from 丁香园AV.

With an Insight Grant from Canada鈥檚 Social Science & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Gibson recently began a new, mixed methods project called State Development Projects and Social Inequality in Urban Brazil. The project examines relationships between state development projects, local politics, and changing social inequalities in urban Brazil during the last 15 years. In particular, it explores the conditions under which local politics can mediate global and national development processes in ways that weaken, rather than exacerbate social inequalities. 

In quantitative work on the South Indian state of Kerala, his research traces expanded state provision of public housing and sanitation to women鈥檚 participation in a local direct democratic institution called the gram sabha. Published in American Sociological Review, these findings about the developmental contributions of women鈥檚 participation 鈥� and the absence of support for longstanding explanations 鈥� address sociological theories of development by contributing a new account of redistribute direct democracy in the global South.

In qualitative, comparative work on rural Indonesia, he and his colleagues have addressed how women and historically marginalized ethnic groups use direct democratic institutions to engage elites in the local politics of development projects. Findings from this collaborative research have appeared in publications including Studies in Comparative International Development.

Publications

Books

Christopher L. Gibson. 2019. . Stanford, CA. Stanford University Press.

Articles

Christopher L. Gibson. forthcoming. 鈥淏ook Review of Achieving Access: Professional Movements and the Politics of Health Universalism by Joseph Harris.鈥� Contemporary Sociology.

Jorge Alves and Christopher L. Gibson. 2019. 鈥淪tates and Capitals of Health: Multi-level Health Governance in Brazil鈥� (equally co-authored). Latin American Politics & Society, 61(1), 54-77. doi:10.1017/lap.2018.59

Christopher L. Gibson. 2018.  Sociology of Development  4(2): 169-190.

Christopher L. Gibson. 2017.  Social Forces 96(2): 169-190

Christopher L. Gibson. 2016.  Latin American Perspectives. 43(2): 153-171.

Christopher L. Gibson. 2012.  American Sociological Review 77(3): 409-434.

Christopher L. Gibson. 2012.  Social Forces.

Christopher L. Gibson and Michael Woolcock. 2008.  Studies in Comparative International Development43: 151-180.
- Prior version published as: Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper #8. University of Manchester. UK.

Christopher L. Gibson and Michael Woolcock. 2005.  World Bank Policy Research Working Paper #3713.Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.

Grants and Awards

• 2014- SSHRC Insight Grant: 鈥淪tate Development Projects & Social Inequality in Urban Brazil鈥�  ($303,322)
• 2012-2014 President鈥檚 Startup Research Grant, 丁香园AV
• 2011-12 ACLS/Mellon Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellowship
• 2010 Fulbright IIE Scholarship, Fulbright Commission of Brazil
• 2009-2010 Inter American Foundation (IAF) Grassroots Development Fellowship
• 2008-2009 National Science Foundation (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant

Teaching

• IS 801 Politics, Institutions, and Development
  
• IS 802 Political Economy of Development
• IS 815/435 Theories of Latin American Development
  
• IS 809/419 Social Movements in the Global South
• IS 835/429 Social and Political Change in Latin America
• IS 830 Analytic Approaches to International Studies
• IS 210 Comparative World Politics: Trajectories, Regimes, Challenges