Box 1916

Maxcy Hall

112 George Street

Providence, RI 02912

Telephone: (401) 863-2367

Sociology@brown.edu

 

Master in Public Policy (M.P.P.), Harvard University

Contact Information:
Brown University
Department of Sociology
Box 1916
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: (401) 863-3459
Fax: (401) 863-3213
Christopher_Gibson@brown.edu

Year of Entry: 2005

Previous Degrees:
Master in Public Policy (M.P.P.), Harvard University, 2003
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) cum laude in Environmental Studies, The Colorado College, 1998

Areas of Interest:
Development, Political Sociology,  Public Sociology, Social Theory, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia

I am chiefly interested in the emergence of alternatives to neoliberalism in large developing countries such as Brazil, India, China, and Indonesia. I compare the differing ways and extent to which such alternatives discourage and promote pathways of social, political, and economic development that combat poverty and inequality. As a Graduate Program in Development (GPD) fellow at Brown's Watson Institute for International Studies, my research agenda explores macro-micro linkages within and between social movements, the emergence of participatory democratic institutions, and efforts to democratize the market economy. My previous research used ethnographies to assess the impact of a deliberative development project on the capacity of rural Indonesian villagers from more and less powerful identity groups to jointly manage project-related conflicts.

Currently, I am interested in the differential impact of the 73rd and 74th Ammendments to the Indian Constitution on the participation of poor and marginalized groups in public decision making. Passed in 1993, the Ammendments devolved budgeting authority for about 40% of state development expenditures to local government and required that decisions about them occur in a tiered set of open assemblies with quotas for participation by women and marginalized groups. Whereas previous variable-oriented impact evaluations using regression analysis have treated institutional design features as constant, relational sociological theory and fuzzy set methods instead help me account for how important variations in those designs differentially impact relational configurations between more and less powerful participants. Eventually, I'd like to cross-nationally compare the redistributive impacts of different participatory democratic institutional designs.