Tulia Falleti

Tulia Falleti 2021 Headshot Photo

Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of Political Science; Director of the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies; Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics; Tri-Chair of the Faculty Senate.

215-898-4240

Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, Room 324

Tulia Falleti (Ph.D. Political Science, Northwestern University, 2003; B.A. Sociology, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1994) is the Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of Political Science, Director of the Latin American and Latinx Studies Program, and Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Falleti is the author of Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2010), which earned the Donna Lee Van Cott Award to the best book on political institutions by the Latin American Studies Association; and, with Santiago Cunial, of Participation in Social Policy (Elements in the Politics of Development, Cambridge University Press, 2018).  She is co-editor, with Orfeo Fioretos and Adam Sheingate, of The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2016), and with Emilio Parrado of Latin America Since the Left Turn (University of Pennsylvania, 2018), among other co-edited volumes. Her articles on decentralization, federalism, authoritarianism, participation, and qualitative methods have appeared in edited volumes and journals such as the American Political Science ReviewComparative Political StudiesPubliusQualitative SociologyStudies in Comparative International Development, and World Politics among others. As Principal Investigator of an interdisciplinary team, Falleti has been awarded a Just Futures $5 million grant from The Mellon Foundation. Collaborating with partners throughout the Americas, the Penn team is researching “Dispossessions in the Americas: The Extraction of Bodies, Land, and Cultural Heritage from La Conquista to the Present.” Among other objectives, Falleti is researching the articulation of indigenous peoples’ demands regarding territorial claims, rights to prior consultation, living well, and plurinationality; and collaborating with two non-governmental health organizations to assess the effectiveness of mobile health care for indigenous women and children in remote rural areas. As of May 2022, Falleti is serving as Tri-Chair of the Penn Faculty Senate. 

Office Hours
Please email professor for office hours
Research Interests
  • Comparative Politics
  • Latin American Politics
  • Democratization
  • Federalism and Decentralization
  • Community Participation 
  • Qualitative Research Methods
  • Historical Institutionalism
Courses Taught
  • Latin American Politics
  • Introduction to Comparative Politics
  • Comparative Politics of Federalism and Decentralization
  • Democratization
  • Transitions to Democracy
  • Democracy and Decentralization in Latin America
  • Social Capital and Trust
Selected Publications

Books:

Participation in Social Policy. Falleti, Tulia G. and Santiago Cunial, 2018, Elements in the Politics of Development, Cambridge University Press. 

Latin America Since the Left TurnFalleti, Tulia G. and Emilio Parrado (eds.) 2017, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. [See table of contents, contributors, and introduction here

The Oxford Handbook of Historical InstitutionalismFioretos, Orfeo, Tulia G. Falleti and Adam Sheingate (eds.) 2016, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [See table of contents, contributors, and introduction here]

El Federalismo Argentino en Perspectiva Comparada [Argentine Federalism in Comparative Perspective] Falleti, Tulia G., Lucas González and Martín Lardone (eds.) 2012, Córdoba: EDUCC – Editorial de la Universidad Católica de Córdoba; Buenos Aires: Educa. (Reprinted, Buenos Aires: EDUCA 2013) [See table of contents, contributors, and introduction here

Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America, 2010, New York: Cambridge University Press. (Buy this book from Amazon or the publisher.) 

Articles:

Falleti, Tulia G. 2020. “Invisible to Political Science: Indigenous Politics in a World in Flux,” review essay, Journal of Politics, Nov. online.

Falleti, Tulia G. and Thea N. Riofrancos. 2018. “Endogenous Participation: Strengthening Prior Consultation in Extractive Economies.” World Politics. Vol. 70, No. 1. 

Davies, Emmerich, and Tulia G. Falleti. 2017. "Poor People’s Participation: Neoliberal Institutions or Left Turn?Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 50, Issue 12, 1699-1731.

Falleti, Tulia G. 2016. "Process tracing of extensive and intensive processes. New Political Economy, Volume 21 (5), 455-462. 

Falleti, Tulia G., and James Mahoney. 2015. "The Comparative Sequential Method." In Advances in Comparative-Historical Analysis, ed. J. Mahoney and K. Thelen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 211-39. Spanish Translation: here

Falleti, Tulia G. 2013 “Decentralization in Time: A Process-Tracing Approach to Federal Dynamics of Change,” in Arthur Benz and Jörg Broschek (eds.) Federal Dynamics: Continuity, Change and Varieties of Federalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 140-166. 

Falleti, Tulia G. 2011 “Varieties of Authoritarianism: The Organization of the Military State and its Effect on Federalism in Argentina and Brazil.” Studies in Comparative International Development, 46 (2), 137-162 (Lead Article).

Falleti, Tulia G. 2010 “Infiltrating the State: The Evolution of Health Care Reforms in Brazil, 1964-1988” in James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen (eds.) Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, New York: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 2, 38-62. Portuguese Translation here.

Falleti, Tulia G. and Julia Lynch. 2009 “Context and Causal Mechanisms in Political Analysis,” Comparative Political Studies, 42 (9), 1143-1166 (Lead Article).

Falleti, Tulia G. and Julia Lynch. 2008 “From Process to Mechanism: Varieties of Disaggregation,” Qualitative Sociology, 31 (3), 333-339. 

Falleti, Tulia G. 2005 “A Sequential Theory of Decentralization: Latin American Cases in Comparative Perspective,” American Political Science Review, 99 (3), 327-346. (Winner of the 2006 Gregory Luebbert Article Award from the Comparative Politics Section of the American Political Science Association.)

Cameron, Maxwell A. and Tulia G. Falleti. 2005 “Federalism and the Subnational Separation of Powers,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 35 (2), 245-271.  

Gibson, Edward L. and Tulia G. Falleti. 2004 “Unity by the Stick: Regional Conflict and the Origins of Argentine Federalism,” in Edward L. Gibson (ed.), Federalism and Democracy in Latin America, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 226-254.

Gibson, Edward L., Ernesto Calvo and Tulia G. Falleti. 2004 “Reallocative Federalism: Legislative Overrepresentation and Public Spending in the Western Hemisphere,” in Edward L. Gibson (ed.), Federalism and Democracy in Latin America, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 173-196.

CV (file)