Professor Gibson is Professor and former Department Chair of Political Science and Director of the International Studies Program at UC San Diego. He studies the politics of democracy and development, especially topics concerning foreign aid, elections, political accountability, political institutions, and the environment. Professor Gibson’s latest books examine the effectiveness and consequences of foreign aid. Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge Through Evaluations and Research (2008 National Academies Press) investigates USAID’s democracy promotion programs. Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (Oxford 2005, co-authors E. Ostrom, K. Andersson, and S. Shivakumar) analyzes how the structure of foreign aid can produce perverse outcomes that impede their effectiveness. Currently, he is working on multiple projects that assess the determinants of voting behavior in Africa by using original data from exit polls designed and implemented by the research team he founded at UCSD: The Project on African Political Economy (PAPE).
Professor Gibson is Professor and former Department Chair of Political Science and Director of the International Studies Program at UC San Diego. He studies the politics of democracy and development, especially topics concerning foreign aid, elections, political accountability, political institutions, and the environment. Professor Gibson’s latest books examine the effectiveness and consequences of foreign aid. Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge Through Evaluations and Research (2008 National Academies Press) investigates USAID’s democracy promotion programs. Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (Oxford 2005, co-authors E. Ostrom, K. Andersson, and S. Shivakumar) analyzes how the structure of foreign aid can produce…