Margaret Levi earned her BA from Bryn Mawr College in 1968 and her PhD from Harvard University in 1974, the year she joined the faculty of the University of Washington. She became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in 2002. She served as president of the American Political Science Association from 2004 to 2005. In 2014 she received the William H. Riker Prize in Political Science.
She is the Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, and Jere L. Bacharach Professor Emerita of International Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. She has been a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. She held the Chair in Politics, United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, 2009-13 and is currently an Affiliate Professor there. At the University of Washington she was director of the CHAOS (Comparative Historical Analysis of Organizations and States) Center and formerly the Harry Bridges Chair and Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies.
Levi is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and six books, including Of Rule and Revenue (University of California Press, 1988); Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (Cambridge University Press, 1997); Analytic Narratives (Princeton University Press, 1998); and Cooperation Without Trust? (Russell Sage, 2005). Her most recent book, In the Interest of Others (Princeton, 2013), co-authored with John Ahlquist, explores how organizations provoke member willingness to act beyond material interest. In other work, she investigates the conditions under which people come to believe their governments are legitimate and the consequences of those beliefs for compliance, consent, and the rule of law. Her research continues to focus on how to improve the quality of government. She is also committed to understanding and improving supply chains so that the goods we consume are produced in a manner that sustains both the workers and the environment.
She is general editor of Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics and co-general editor of the Annual Review of Political Science. Levi serves on the boards of the: Social Science Research Council (SSRC); Institute For Advanced Study; Center for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (CEACS) in Madrid; and Scholar and Research Group of the World Justice Project. Levi and her husband, Robert Kaplan, are avid collectors of Australian Aboriginal art. Ancestral Modern, an exhibition drawn from their collection, was on view at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) in 2012. Yale University Press and SAM co-published the catalogue.Her fellowships include the Woodrow Wilson in 1968, German Marshall in 1988-9, and the Center for Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences in 1993-1994. She has lectured and been a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, the European University Institute, the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, the Juan March Institute, the Budapest Collegium, Cardiff University, Oxford University, Bergen University, and Peking University. [Levi personal website https://sites.google.com/site/margaretlevi]
Margaret Levi (b. 1947) is a political scientist specializing in governance, labor movements, and political legitimacy. She earned her BA from Bryn Mawr College (1968) and her PhD from Harvard University (1974), joining the University of Washington’s faculty that same year. Over her 40-year tenure at UW (1974–2014), she held key leadership roles, including Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies (1996–2000), where she expanded labor studies curricula and organized public programs such as the
Levi’s research examines how governments and institutions gain public trust, the dynamics of citizen compliance and dissent, and strategies for improving governance and labor conditions. Her work on unions—particularly the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)—highlights organizational structures and labor activism. A recurring theme in her scholarship is how leaders mobilize collective action for public goods, including workers' rights, environmental sustainability, and social justice.
She is the author or co-author of six books, including:
Levi has held prominent roles in academia and professional organizations, including
Her honors include:
Beyond academia, Levi serves on boards for the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Institute for Advanced Study, and World Justice Project. With her husband, Robert Kaplan, she is a noted collector of Australian Aboriginal art, co-curating the 2012 exhibition Ancestral Modern at the Seattle Art Museum.
Levi is currently Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Jere L. Bacharach Professor Emerita of International Studies at the University of Washington. Her papers in this collection reflect her contributions to labor studies, political theory, and institutional reform.
Writings and publications, oral interview recordings, transcripts and notes, committee files, subject files, correspondence, course files, research files, awards, and art collection records.
Organized into 2 accessions.
Open to all users, but access to portions of the papers restricted. Contact Special Collections for details.
Some material stored offsite; advance notice required for use.
Creator's literary rights not transferred to the University of Washington Libraries.
Materials stored off site; advance notice required for use.
To Bridges Center AV Collection:
Ron Magden Oral Histories