Margaret Levi

Biographic Data

ID100992
NAMEMargaret Levi
GIVEN NAMESMargaret
FAMILY NAMELevi
SIGNATURELEVI M
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Washington
ORCID0000-0001-6672-4552
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS87
TOTAL CITATIONS1622
AUTHOR COUNT87
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1975
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX14

  • Principles of Political Equality and the Logic of Power

    Open AccessPablo Beramendi, Timothy Besley et al.ARTICLEAnnual Review of Political Science2026

    At its core, democracy carries a promise of political equality that rests on rules, norms, and procedures that govern the polity to afford equal consideration and freedom from domination to every member. However, despite being widely cherished, political equality is rarely defined precisely. This article offers a framework for studying political equality that can be used to organize thinking. We begin with an idealized notion of direct democracy,…

  • Expanding the Community of Fate by Expanding the Community of Care

    Open AccessMargaret LeviARTICLEDaedalus2025Cited by: 1

    All of us need or give care-or both-over the course of our lives. Thus, care is a widely shared interest that can become the basis of an expanded and inclusive community of fate in which people take responsibility for those in need, even if they are strangers or unlikely to be able to reciprocate. This essay explores this claim and some of the conditions for creating such an expanded and inclusive community of fate

  • Technology & the Dynamics of Care for Older People

    Open AccessElizabeth Fetterolf, Andrew Elder et al.ARTICLEDaedalus2025

    The United States, like many countries, faces a contradiction: a growing number of older adults need care, yet the workforce on which this care depends is underpaid, marginalized, and relegated to the bottom ranks of the health care system. In response, technology presents an appealing potential solution for worried families hoping to remotely monitor “aging in place,” for care homes facing labor shortages, and for the technology companies that s…

  • Introduction: The Social Science of Caregiving

    Open AccessAlison Gopnik, Margaret Levi et al.ARTICLEDaedalus2025Cited by: 1

    For most people, most of the time, caring for others, particularly close others-children and parents, wives and husbands-is at once one of the most meaningful, important, and morally compelling things we ever do-and one of the most difficult. With a few exceptions, however, this foundational human capacity has been oddly invisible in the social and human sciences. In this volume of Dædalus, “The Social Science of Caregiving,” we aim to at least b…

  • Property Righting: The Politics of Rights Over Land and Labor

    Open AccessMargaret Levi, Emily RussellARTICLEAnnual Review of Political Science2025Cited by: 1References: 48

    This essay focuses on property rights in land and labor, the ways in which they have been entangled since the development of early capitalism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the extent to which they have realized—or failed to realize—desiderata in addition to economic productivity and growth. The definition and enforcement of property rights may reflect the power relations within a society, but their realization depends on state l…

  • Political equality: What is it and why does it matter?

    Open AccessPablo Beramendi, Timothy Besley et al.ARTICLEOxford Open Economics2024

    Political inequality is a distinctive type of inequality, which cannot be reduced to economic or power inequalities. The article frames political equality as trying to achieve ‘equal consideration’ among members of a polity, arguing that assessing whether this is achieved requires looking at process as well as outcomes. The analysis focuses on two core dimensions that can be studied empirically: patterns of political participation and political r…

  • Reducing the Transactional Value of Identity & Race

    Open AccessHenry Farrell, Margaret LeviARTICLEDaedalus2023

    Grieve Chelwa, Darrick Hamilton, and Avi Green explain how existing accounts of capitalism systematically neglect racial identity group stratification. Their approach points to an important comparative dimension and two significant research agendas that could supplement their arguments. First would be to inquire into the role that equal respect plays in pushing back against stratification. Second would be to investigate how other aspects of socia…

  • Mobilizing in the Interest of Others

    Open AccessMargaret Levi, Zachary UgolnikARTICLEDaedalus2023Cited by: 3References: 6

    A new moral political economy will revise capitalist democracy to ensure flourishing for all. Its principles derive from the recognition that humans are social animals who benefit from reciprocity and cooperation. We argue for attention to mobilizing strategies and governance arrangements that facilitate prosocial behavior and overcome the divisions-racial, political, and otherwise-that block awareness of common interests. We advocate for an expa…

  • Linking multiple stressor science to policy opportunities through network modeling

    Open AccessLisa M Wedding, S J Green et al.ARTICLEMarine Policy2022

    Global climate change and a suite of other human-generated stressors are causing significant changes in the world’s oceans. Ocean stressors combine and interact, and when there are multiple stressors, the interactions are often synergistic – the combined impact is greater than the sum of their individual effects. Synergistic interactions yield non-linear impacts, which means that failure to account for synergies may vastly underestimate risk. How…

  • Trustworthy Government: The Obligations of Government & the Responsibilities of the Governed

    Open AccessMargaret LeviARTICLEDaedalus2022Cited by: 3

    Establishing trustworthy government is a major problem for contemporary democracies. Without public confidence, government faces considerable noncompliance with its policies, as has been the case with the reaction of some subpopulations to COVID safety requirements. The pressures on government today are numerous. The challenges are complex and the polity diverse. Creating confidence and thus willing compliance requires a demonstrated government c…

  • The Power of Beliefs

    Open AccessMargaret LeviARTICLEAnnual Review of Political Science2022Cited by: 2References: 78

    My commitment to combining normative concerns with empirical social science led, perhaps a bit counterintuitively, to early adoption of rational choice political economy. However, it was a modified form of rational choice that takes into account ethical and societal concerns. This was the approach I applied to considerations of compliance and consent with government, what makes a trustworthy government, the formation of legitimating beliefs, and …

  • Conscription: The Price of Citizenship

    Margaret LeviCHAPTERAnalytic Narratives2020

  • Using Counterfactuals in Historical Analysis: Theories of Revolution

    Edgar Kiser, Margaret LeviCHAPTERCounterfactual Thought…2020

  • Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives

    George Breslauer, Lars Cederman et al.BOOKCounterfactual Thought…2020

  • Alternatives to Social Science One

    Open AccessMargaret Levi, Betsy RajalaARTICLEPS Political Science & Politics2020Cited by: 1References: 4

    This article responds to King and Persily’s (2019) proposal for a new model of industry–academic partnership using an independent third party to mediate between firms and academics. We believe this is a reasonable proposal for highly sensitive individual-level data, but it may not be appropriate for all types of data. We explore alternative options to their proposal, including Administrative Data Research Facilities, Data Collaboratives at GovLab…

  • Antidemocracy in America: Truth, Power, and the Republic at Risk

    Gretchen Blake, Lisa Wade et al.BOOKAntidemocracy in America2019

  • Of Rule and Revenue

    Margaret LeviBOOKOf Rule and Revenue2019

    Margaret Levi's wide-ranging theoretical and historical study demonstrates the importance of political relative to economic factors in accounting for revenue production policies

  • Douglass North’s Theory of Politics

    Open AccessMargaret Levi, Barry R WeingastARTICLEPS Political Science & Politics2019Cited by: 1References: 5

    Douglass C. North, co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1993, became a major leader in historical and comparative political science and in the study of institutions more generally. His work proved particularly relevant for those interested in questions of state building, state variation, development, and long-term secular change

  • The Who, What, and Why of Performance-based Legitimacy

    Margaret LeviARTICLEJournal of Intervention and…2018Cited by: 1References: 1

    This concluding article summarizes the main arguments and contributions of the special issue on virtuous circles of governance in areas of limited statehood. Furthermore, the article points out directions for future research. I argue that in order to understand virtuous circles of governance adequately we need to pay more attention to power dynamics between governance actors and citizens, including conflict and coercion. We also need to broaden o…

  • In Memoriam

    Open AccessArthur Denzau, Michael Ross Fowler et al.ARTICLEPS Political Science & Politics2017References: 3

    An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button

  • Trust, Sociology of

    Open AccessMargaret LeviCHAPTERInternational Encyclopedia of the…2015

  • Governing Global Supply Chains: What We Know (and Don't) About Improving Labor Rights and Working Conditions

    Daniel Berliner, Anne Regan Greenleaf et al.ARTICLEAnnual Review of Law and Social…2015Cited by: 12References: 41

    Research over the past decade has made considerable progress toward achieving a holistic understanding of the myriad actors, interests, and relationships shaping labor rights in global supply chains, but numerous obstacles remain to building a more cumulative research program. In this essay we outline two major challenges and several fruitful directions forward. First, we review the different outcomes of interest in research on labor rights and h…

  • In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism

    John S Ahlquist, Margaret LeviBOOKIn the interest of others2014

    This book develops a new theory of organizational leadership and governance to explain why some organizations expand their scope of action in ways that do not benefit their members directly. The book documents eighty years of such activism by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States and the Waterside Workers Federation in Australia. The book systematically compares the ILWU and WWF to the Teamsters and the Internationa…

  • Provoking Preferences: Unionization, Trade Policy, and the Ilwu Puzzle

    Open AccessJohn S Ahlquist, Anthony Clayton et al.ARTICLEInternational Organization2014Cited by: 41References: 35

    If any group of American blue-collar workers has benefited from the growth of trade it is the unionized dockworkers along the US West Coast. Nevertheless, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) representing these workers is vocally opposed to trade liberalization. We examine several competing explanations for this puzzle and evaluate them by tracing the union's stance on trade over several decades. We also use an original survey t…

  • In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism

    John S Ahlquist, Margaret LeviBOOKIn the interest of others2013

    This book develops a new theory of organizational leadership and governance to explain why some organizations expand their scope of action in ways that do not benefit their members directly. The book documents eighty years of such activism by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States and the Waterside Workers Federation in Australia. The book systematically compares the ILWU and WWF to the Teamsters and the Internationa…