About

Tulia G. Falleti is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on political science topics, and she is part of the faculty at the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics. Specific details about her research interests, background, and key contributions are not provided in the page text.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• History
• Computer Science
• Social Science
• Economics
• Art history
• Media studies
• Neoclassical economics
• Political economy
• Library science

Selected publications

• Studying Indigenous Peoples’ Politics

  2024-03-26

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter is written for the non-Indigenous and non-anthropologist student or social scientist who aims to study Indigenous peoples’ politics or other aspects of Indigenous cultures and nations. It reviews the main tasks and attitudes required of the non-Indigenous scholar before and during the research and dissemination of results, for their research to be, at least in part, interculturally sensitive. The chapter argues that respect, reciprocity, and a decolonizing ambition are three principles that should guide research. In highlighting the importance of studying Indigenous politics, the chapter also grapples with the question of whether non-Indigenous scholars should study Indigenous peoples’ politics and the extent to which their research is reliable. While the recommendations contained here should apply to non-Indigenous researchers who adopt any methodological approach, they will be particularly relevant to those conducting qualitative research and interacting with Indigenous peoples.

  PublisherDOI

• State and NGO coproduction of health care in the Gran Chaco

  World Development · 2024-01-02 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The collaboration between state and civil society in the delivery of public services is paramount to sustainable and participatory development in rural areas with marginalized populations. Previous research identified complementarity and embeddedness as two essential features of successful coproduction. However, most of the literature on coproduction studies users and providers who share the same language and culture, even if power asymmetries are high. We combine the literatures on non-state social welfare provision and on coproduction to analyze a collaboration between states and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in multicultural and multilingual contexts. In such contexts, we argue, embeddedness requires not only language interpreters but also intercultural policies and training, without which the benefits of coproduction are lost in translation. Our study is based on a recent collaboration between the states of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay and two health care NGOs that provide prenatal care to women in the Gran Chaco. In this region, a large portion of the population is Indigenous and maternal and infant mortality are high. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, combined with observational data, we analyze the experiences of public health care providers and NGO doctors involved in the intervention. We evaluate if there is complementarity between the state and the NGOs regarding access to preventive health care, diagnosis and treatment, and human resources in the health sector. Finally, we analyze whether state or NGO actors are embedded in local civil society or Indigenous communities. We find that this medical intervention significantly improves access to and delivery of health care to pregnant women, and promotes attention to neglected diseases such as Chagas. It also improves local human resources in the health sector. Despite these benefits, it lacks an intercultural approach to health care, limiting its potential, but also opening new opportunities for future research and practice.

  PublisherDOI

• Coproduction of Health Care for Indigenous Women: Evaluating a Medical Intervention in the Great Chaco Region

  2020-08-27

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Coproduction between state and civil society raises many questions: from state capture, to civil society cooptation, and accountability in public goods and services’ delivery. We analyze a collaboration among Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay and two health-care non-governmental organizations that provide prenatal care to women in the Great Chaco region, where a majority of the population is indigenous and maternal and infant mortality are high. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, we assess complementarity and embeddedness of the intervention along four dimensions: 1) patients’ access to health-care, 2) diagnostics and treatment, 3) human resources, and 4) financial resources. We argue this intervention is a valuable strategy to improve access and delivery of health care to pregnant women and attend neglected diseases. We also raise concerns about institutional racism and the absence of an intercultural approach to health-care. We contribute to the literatures on coproduction, health care, and indigenous populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Social Origins of Institutional Strength

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2020 · 4 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Why do some political institutions become strong, while others remain weak? Why do imported international legal norms remain aspirational rights in some countries, but are complied with and enforced in others? Why do institutions born out of similar conditions subsequently diverge in their levels of institutional strength? Social scientists have amply demonstrated that strong institutions are essential to economic and political development. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Max Weber (1978 [1922]) famously argued that capitalist development required the development of a strong, rational, state bureaucracy. More recently, political scientists and economists alike have highlighted the importance of strong political institutions for economic growth and development (Haggard 1990; North 1990). In political science, scholars have developed theories of why and how institutions originate and change (Knight 1992; Steinmo, Thelen, and Longstreth 1992; Thelen 2004). However, much less attention has been paid to the questions of why and how institutions strengthen or alternatively remain weak, which are at the center of this edited volume.

  PublisherDOI

• Invisible to Political Science: Indigenous Politics in a World in Flux

  The Journal of Politics · 2020 · 11 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  PublisherDOI

• The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2020 · 122 citations

  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Library science

  Analysts and policymakers often decry the failure of institutions to accomplish their stated purpose. Bringing together leading scholars of Latin American politics, this volume helps us understand why. The volume offers a conceptual and theoretical framework for studying weak institutions. It introduces different dimensions of institutional weakness and explores the origins and consequences of that weakness. Drawing on recent research on constitutional and electoral reform, executive-legislative relations, property rights, environmental and labor regulation, indigenous rights, squatters and street vendors, and anti-domestic violence laws in Latin America, the volume's chapters show us that politicians often design institutions that they cannot or do not want to enforce or comply with. Challenging existing theories of institutional design, the volume helps us understand the logic that drives the creation of weak institutions, as well as the conditions under which they may be transformed into institutions that matter.

  PublisherDOI

• Santiago Anria, When Movements Become Parties: The Bolivian MAS in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Maps, figures, tables, bibliography, index, 275 pp.; hardcover $105, ebook $84.

  Latin American Politics and Society · 2019-08-27

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Santiago Anria, When Movements Become Parties: The Bolivian MAS in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Maps, figures, tables, bibliography, index, 275 pp.; hardcover 84. - Volume 61 Issue 4

  PublisherDOI

• Civic programmatic participation in public health: the case of Argentina

  Figshare · 2019-01-01

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract: Since the Alma Ata World Health Organization Conference in 1978, countries around the world have adopted institutions that promote the participation of citizens in their public health systems. The main objectives of this article are two-fold. First, we describe the origins and implementation of a national-level civic participatory program that was in place in Argentina in the mid-2000s: the Local Participatory Projects (Proyectos Locales Participativos). Second, we analyze the 201 local participatory projects that were carried out in Argentina between 2007 and 2008. We study health and environmental problems that prompt people’s participation in the program and the social dynamics through which such participation is executed.

  PublisherDOI

• Civic programmatic participation in public health: the case of Argentina

  Cadernos de Saúde Pública · 2019-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Since the Alma Ata World Health Organization Conference in 1978, countries around the world have adopted institutions that promote the participation of citizens in their public health systems. The main objectives of this article are two-fold. First, we describe the origins and implementation of a national-level civic participatory program that was in place in Argentina in the mid-2000s: the Local Participatory Projects (Proyectos Locales Participativos). Second, we analyze the 201 local participatory projects that were carried out in Argentina between 2007 and 2008. We study health and environmental problems that prompt people's participation in the program and the social dynamics through which such participation is executed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Participación cívica en programas de salud pública: el caso de Argentina

  LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · 2019-08-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Since the Alma Ata World Health Organization Conference in 1978, countries around the world have adopted institutions that promote the participation of citizens in their public health systems. The main objectives of this article are two-fold. First, we describe the origins and implementation of a national-level civic participatory program that was in place in Argentina in the mid-2000s: the Local Participatory Projects (Proyectos Locales Participativos). Second, we analyze the 201 local participatory projects that were carried out in Argentina between 2007 and 2008. We study health and environmental problems that prompt people’s participation in the program and the social dynamics through which such participation is executed.

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Julia Lynch

  University of Pennsylvania

  6 shared

• E. Leigh Gibson

  Science North

  6 shared

• Santiago Cunial

  University of Pennsylvania

  6 shared

• Ernesto Calvo

  University of Maryland, College Park

  5 shared

• Daniel M. Brinks

  4 shared

• James Mahoney

  Northwestern University

  2 shared

• Favio Crudo

  2 shared

• Emmerich Davies

  2 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Political Science

  Northwestern University

  2003

• BA (Licenciatura), Sociology

  University of Buenos Aires

  1994

• Bachiller con orientación humanística

  Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires

  1988

Awards & honors

• Donna Lee Van Cott Award from the Latin American Studies Ass…
• Winner of the 2006 Gregory Luebbert Article Award from the C…