Charles Hankla
Associate Professor Political Science- Education
Ph.D. Emory 2005
M.A. London School of Economics 1999
BSFS Georgetown University 1997
- Specializations
Comparative & International Relations: Political Economy
- Biography
Charles R. Hankla is Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is also Director of Governance Programs and Senior Research Associate at the university’s International Center for Public Policy (ICePP) and an affiliate of the Asian Studies Center. Dr. Hankla earned his Ph.D. in 2005 from Emory University, and he also holds degrees from Georgetown University and the London School of Economics. In the spring and summer of 2013, he was a visiting scholar at Sciences Po Lille in France.
Dr. Hankla’s research is in the fields of comparative and international political economy, and he has a particular interest in political institutions as they relate to fiscal decentralization, budgeting, trade policy, and industrial policy. His research has included cross-national, quantitative studies and also field-work based analyses of India, France, and Mozambique.
Dr. Hankla’s work has appeared in such journals as the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, and Publius. He has published a book from Edward Elgar, co-authored with Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Raul Ponce-Rodriguez, and entitled Local Accountability and National Coordination in Fiscal Federalism: A Fine Balance. And he is currently Co-PI on a grant from the International Growth Centre in London, funding survey experiments on voting behavior in the Indian state of Bihar.
Dr. Hankla currently serves as director of the department’s M.A. program, and he is a past departmental graduate director. Dr. Hankla serves or has served on dozens of dissertation and thesis committees in political science, economics, and public policy, and he received the college Graduate Mentoring Award in 2019. He also directs an exchange program with Sciences Po Lille in France and has led students on a study abroad program to Presidency University, Kolkata in India.
In addition, Dr. Hankla is an active consultant, particularly on topics related to fiscal decentralization and public budgeting. In his role as Governance Program Director at ICePP, Dr. Hankla is responsible for growing the center’s consulting and training activities related to fiscal governance in the developing world. In addition, his co-authored policy brief on decentralization has been accepted for publication by the T20, the official think tank of the G20 process. His past consulting work has been funded by the United Nations Development Program, the US Department of State, and the US Agency for International Development. Dr. Hankla speaks fluent French and has some reading knowledge of Hindi, German, and Russian.
Finally, Dr. Hankla is a regular public commentator on the politics of economic affairs. His online articles for the Conversation have attracted over 640,000 reads and have appeared on the websites of Newsweek, Time, Salon, The Huffington Post, The East Asia Forum, The World Economic Forum, Fortune, The New Republic, and The Business Standard of India, among many others. Dr. Hankla also gives regular media interviews and has appeared on or been quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the China Global Television Network, CBS News, BBC News, Julie Rose’s Top of Mind, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and many others.
- Publications
Book
- Local Accountability and National Coordination in Fiscal Federalism: A Fine Balance. With Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, and Raul Ponce Rodriguez. Edward Elgar Publishers. Series: Studies in Fiscal Federalism and State-Local Finance.
Journal Articles and Reports
- Hankla, Charles, Sayan Banerjee, Anjali Thomas, Arindam Banerjee. 2022. Electing Women in Ethnically Divided Societies: Candidates, Campaigns, and Intersectionality in Bihar, India. With Sayan Banerjee, Arindam Banerjee, and Anjali Thomas. Comparative Political Studies.
- Thomas, Anjali, Sayan Banerjee, Charles Hankla, and Arindam Banerjee. 2022. "Ethnonationalist Gender Norms: How Parties Shape Voter Attitudes to Women Candidates in India." Conditionally Accepted at American Journal of Political Science.
- Shrestha, Kshitiz, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, and Charles Hankla. 2022. Does Decentralization Reduce Corruption? Exploring the Conditional Role of Parties. Forthcoming at Economics and Politics.
- Banerjee, Sayan and Charles Hankla. 2021. Party Systems and Public Goods: The Dynamics of Good Governance in the Indian States. India Review19(5): 496-522.
- Ponce Rodriguez, Raul, Charles R. Hankla, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, Eunice Heredia-Ortiz. 2020. The Politics of Fiscal Federalism: A “Strong” Decentralization Theorem. Journal of Theoretical Politics 32 (4): 605-639.
- Awarded the Elinor Ostrom Award for best paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Politics in the prior year by the Formal Theory Section at the American Political Science Association Annual Convention, Montreal, 2022.
- Doner, Richard, Michael Rich, Gloria Tinubu, Veronica Womack, and Charles Hankla. “Promoting Development in the Black Belt Region: A Plan for the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission.” A Southern Economic Advancement Project (SEAP) and Roosevelt Institute White Paper. March 2022. Promoting Development in the Black Belt Region: A plan for the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission - SEAP (theseap.org)
- Co-authored this paper proposing innovative structures for the new federal regional commission. Findings were widely shared, including with the new federal co-chair in a joint meeting with the Brookings Institution.
- Abuzeid, Faris and Charles Hankla. 2020. “‘Smart Decentralization:’ Accountability and Community Development through Urban Self-Governance.” Peer Reviewed Policy Brief commissioned by the T20 Committee in Saudi Arabia as part of the G20 Summit Process.
- Accepted in the Proceedings of the G20 after extensive peer review process. Cited in the T20 Final Communique and presented to world leaders at the G20 Summit.
- Ponce Rodriguez, Raul, Charles R. Hankla, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, Eunice Heredia-Ortiz. 2018. Rethinking the Political Economy of Decentralization: How Parties and Elections Shape the Provision of Local Public Goods. Publius 48 (4): 523-558.
- Awarded the Deil Wright Award for best paper presented as part of the Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations Section at the American Political Science Association Annual Convention, Seattle, 2011.
- Hankla, Charles R. and Carrie Lynn Manning. 2017. How Local Elections Can Transform National Politics: Evidence from Mozambique. Publius 47 (1): 49-76.
- Hankla, Charles R. and Daniel Kuthy. 2013. Economic Liberalism in Illiberal Regimes: Authoritarian Variation and the Political Economy of Trade. International Studies Quarterly 57 (3): 492-504.
- Hankla, Charles R. 2013. Fragmented Legislatures and the Budget: Analyzing Presidential Democracies. Economics & Politics 25 (2): 200-228.
- Carrubba, Clifford J., Matthew Gabel, and Charles R. Hankla. 2012. Understanding the Role of the European Court of Justice in European Integration. American Political Science Review 106 (1): 214-223.
- Duffield, John and Charles R. Hankla. 2011. The Efficiency of Institutions: Political Determinants of Energy Consumption in Advanced Industrialized Countries. Comparative Politics 43(2).
- Hankla, Charles R. and William M. Downs. 2010. Decentralization, Governance, and the Structure of Local Political Institutions: Assessing the Evidence. Local Government Studies 36 (6): 759-783.
- Hankla. Charles R. 2009. When is Fiscal Decentralization Good for Governance? Publius: The Journal of Federalism 39 (4): 632-650.A Chinese translation of this article was published in the Journal of Comparative Economic and Social Systems (No. 4, July 2012, pp. 101-110).
- Carrubba, Clifford J., Matthew Gabel, and Charles R. Hankla. 2008. Judicial Behavior under Political Constraints: Evidence from the European Court of Justice. American Political Science Review 102 (4): 435-452.
- Hankla, Charles R. 2008. Parties and Patronage: An Analysis of Trade and Industrial Policy in India. Comparative Politics 41 (1): 41-60.
- Hankla, Charles R. 2006. Party Strength and International Trade: A Cross National Analysis. Comparative Political Studies 39 (9): 1133-1156.
- Hankla, Charles R. 2006. Party Linkages and Economic Policy: An Examination of Indira Gandhi’s India. Business and Politics 8 (3), Article 4, pp. 1-29.
Current Grant
- “Electing Women in Ethnically Divided Societies: The Case of Bihar.” With Sayan Banerjee and Arindam Banerjee. Funded by the International Growth Centre.