4289 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles CA 90095 EDUCATION JOSEPH ASUNKA Curriculum Vitae asunka@ucla.edu +1-310- 498-7127 www.asunka.bol.ucla.edu Ph.D., Political Science, 2014. Dissertation Title: The Sources of Non- discretionary Distributive Politics in Africa. My dissertation evaluates the political logic of rule- based distribution of public resources in developing countries. I advance an argument to explain the conditions under which politicians would design policies and allocate resources to citizens in ways that limit their own power and influence on distribution. MA, Political Science, 2011. M.Phil. Economics (Econometrics & Health Economics), 2004. University of Ghana, Legon Thesis: Drivers of Health Outcomes in Ghana. B. Sc., Statistics and Computer Science, 1998. University of Ghana, Legon TEACHING EXPERIENCE Lecturer, UCLA (Jul 2014 Dec 2015) Responsible for supervising undergraduate honors theses and teaching the following courses: Research and quantitative methods; Data analysis; Political economy of development; African politics; Teaching Fellow, UCLA (Aug 2012 Jun 2014) Responsible for teaching the following courses: Game theory in politics; Statistics and data analysis; 1
RESEARCH Published Socialization, Adaptation, Transnationalism, and the Reproductive Behavior of Sub- Saharan African Migrants in France (with Afulani, P) Population Research and Policy Review 1 32 (2015). Under Review Political Parties and Electoral Fraud in Ghana s Competitive Democracy (with Sarah Brierley, Miriam Golden, Eric Kramon, and George Ofosu) (Under review). Working Papers (Note: ** denotes dissertation paper) ** What Drives Non- Discretionary Distributive Politics in Developing Democracies? ** Political investment through formal rules Partisanship and Public Service Delivery: The Case of Local Government in Ghana (with Afulani, P) Explaining the timing of founding elections in Africa. Do Election Observers Reduce Electoral Malfeasance? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Ghana (with Sarah Brierley, Eric Kramon, and George Ofosu) Policy Briefs/Technical Reports What People Want From Government: Basic Services Performance Ratings in 34 Countries. Afrobarometer Policy Brief No. 5 (2013). http://afrobarometer.org/files/documents/policy_brief/ab_r5_policybriefno5.pdf Using Community Health Workers in Community- Based Growth Promotion: What Stakeholders Think, (with Afulani A, Awoonor- Williams J, and Opoku E) Oxford Journal of Health Education Research 10.1093/her/cys083 (2012). Tracking Leakage of Public Resources in Education: A Pilot Investigation of Teacher Absence in Public Primary Schools in Ghana (with Daniel Armah- Attoh and George Ofosu), CDD- Ghana Research Paper no. 17 (2008). 2
INVITED TALKS Sources of Good Governance Practices in Ghana. Conference on Electoral Integrity, Violence and Vote- Buying, Stanford University, April 12-13, 2013. Drivers of Good Governance Practices: The Case of Local Government in Ghana. The Africa Region s Governance Practice of the World Bank, February 21, 2013. Targeted Social Transfers and Cooperative Behavior in Beneficiary Communities: a Case Study of Ghana s Cash Transfer Program. First Alumni Seminar, Institute of Development Studies, University of Antwerp, Belgium, 2011. SELCTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS Explaining the timing of founding elections in Africa. MPSA Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, 2015. Political investment through formal rules APSA Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 2014. Electoral payoff of government transparency. ASA Annual Meeting, Marriot Baltimore Waterfront, 2013. Sources of non- discretionary distributive politics in Africa. APSA Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, 2013. Non- discretionary distributive politics in Africa. 6 th Annual Graduate Student Conference on Political Economy, the Alexander Hamilton Center on Political Economy, NYU, 2013. (Received Best Paper award). FELLOWSHIPS Florence Levy Kay Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015-17), Department of Politics and Department of African and Afro- American Studies, Brandeis University, Boston, Massachusetts (Declined). Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2015-16),, University Gothenburg, Sweden (Declined). 3
AWARDS Charles and Sue Young Outstanding Graduate Student Award, UCLA, 2013; awarded by the College of Letters and Sciences to six outstanding graduate students each year. Hamilton Best Paper Award, New York University, 2013. Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA, 2013. International Institute Long- Term Fieldwork Fellowship, UCLA, 2013. EITM Summer Institute Scholarship, Washington University, St. Louis, 2010. Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Merit Fellowship, UCLA, 2010. Best methodology award, Afrobarometer Summer School Research paper, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 2007. Afrobarometer Scholarship, ICPSR Summer Program, University of Michigan, 2006. OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE Programs Officer, Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD- Ghana) (Aug 2004 Aug 2008) Responsible for research in political and social developments in Ghana and Africa. Specific research projects included: Public expenditure tracking in the education sector; Local government revenue mobilization and policy implementation; Domestic election observation and quality of democratic elections; Surveys on national public attitudes on democracy and governance in Africa under the Afrobarometer project; West Africa data manager for the Afrobarometer project; Field manager for Ghana, Afrobarometer Round 4 Survey. Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Ghana (Feb 2003 Jul 2004) Responsible for monitoring and evaluation of education and health programs implemented by the CRS in Northern Ghana: Building capacity of Ghana Education Service supervisors to track progress of innovative teaching and learning tools; Supervising data collection; Data analysis and report writing using monitoring results to inform the design and implementation of subsequent programs. 4
Database Manager/Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, World Vision International, Ghana (Jul 2000 Jun 2002) Responsible for monitoring and evaluation of an agricultural project: the Africa Smallholder Farmer Initiative, implemented by World Vision in Ghana, Mali, and Chad. Subsequently relocated to the IT department in the national office as databases manager for World Vision s child sponsorship program. CONSULTING EXPERIENCE Africa Region of the World Bank Institute: Meta analysis of political economy studies on Africa. STATISTICAL TOOLS Proficient in R, STATA, LaTEX, SPSS, GIS REFERENCES Prof. Barbara Geddes geddes@ucla.edu Prof. Michael F. Thies Thies@polisci.ucla.edu Prof. Daniel N. Posner dposner@polisci.ucla.edu 5