Janice Gallagher’s research focuses on state-civil society relations, specifically how informal institutions, relationships and mobilization shape judicial and human rights outcomes.

Lauren MacLean’s research interests are comparative political economy and public policy, with a focus on the politics of state formation, public service provision, and citizenship in Africa and the U.S. In her first book, MacLean theorizes that divergent histories of state formation help explain variation in informal institutions and everyday practices of citizenship in two similar cross-border regions of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Most recently, MacLean is investigating the politics of public service provision in the electricity sector in Africa. She was selected as a 2017 Carnegie Fellow to investigate how electricity provision may promote democracy and environmental sustainability in Ghana.