He conducts research on African and Latin American politics, with a focus on decentralization, federalism, and local governance. He is the author of Decentralization and Recentralization in the Developing World: Comparative Studies from Africa and Latin America (2011, Penn State University Press), along with several articles in journals such as Publius, Journal of Modern African Studies, and Latin American Research Review. His current research projects include a manuscript on decentralization and local governance in Mali and an edited volume that compares processes of decentralization in 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.