An Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania,
Professor Falleti's research and teaching interests span issues of democratization,
political and civic participation, federalism and decentralization, and Latin American
politics. Her book "Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America"
(2010, Cambridge University Press) won the 2011 Donna Lee Van Cott Award for the best
book in Latin American political institutions from the Latin American Studies Association
and her article “A Sequential Theory of Decentralization: Latin American Cases in
Comparative Perspective,” published in the American Political Science Review (Vol. 99,
No. 3, August 2005: 327-346), earned the 2006 Gregory Luebbert Award for the best article
in comparative politics from the American Political Science Association. Falleti
challenges the conventional wisdom that decentralization reforms always put more power in
the hands of governors and mayors. In her book, she develops a sequential theory and
method to explain the origins and evolution of the decentralization of government
processes and their markedly divergent effects on the distribution of power among
national and subnational actors across countries. The book’s comparative analysis is
based on more than 150 in-depth interviews, archival documents, governmental data, and
extensive fieldwork carried out in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. Falleti’s
research has also appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Studies in Comparative
International Development, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Qualitative Sociology,
Critique Internationale (France), and in top-tier Latin American journals of Argentina,
Brazil, and Mexico. And she has contributed to edited volumes printed in the United
States, Argentina, and Brazil.

"Sequence analysis meets subnational politics in this must-read study of decentralization in Latin America. Drawing on extensive original research in four countries, Falleti uses a new 'comparative sequence method' to show how decentralization reforms varyingly empower subnational political actors depending on when and in what order they are adopted. This fascinating argument is a shining example of the power of comparative-historical analysis and will become a touchstone for all future research on subnational politics in Latin America."