- Associate Professor
Biography
Mark Stephan is an associate professor of Political Science in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at Washington State University Vancouver. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California Santa Cruz and his PhD from Princeton University. His research is in the areas of governance reforms, climate change, environmental justice, transparency policy, and environmental policy. He has mostly worked in the US context but has also performed work in Uzbekistan and recently helped to edit a book with chapters focused on multiple countries including Mongolia, Kenya, and Switzerland. He works in mixed methods, combining quantitative skills with survey and interview research. He worked with colleagues on an NSF-funded, multi-year study on climate change governance that analyzes state-local connections through a polycentric lens. Mark recently served as President of the Board of Governors for City Club of Portland, the city’s oldest civic organization.
Education
- Princeton University, Politics. Ph.D.
- Princeton University, Politics. M.A.
- University of California, Santa Cruz, Psychology. B.A.
Research Interests
Environmental Policy, Urban Governance, Environmental Justice
Recent Publications
- Daley, Dorothy, Troy Abel, Mark Stephan, Saatvika Rai, and Ellen Rogers. 2023. “Can Polycentric Governance Lower Industrial Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Evidence from the United States.” Environmental Policy and Governance: https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2051.
- Stephan, Mark. 2024 “Polycentricity.” Chapter for Elgar Encyclopedia of Climate Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham, UK.
- Stephan, Mark, Graham Marshall, and Michael McGinnis. 2019. “An Introduction to Polycentricity and Governance.” Governing Complexity: Analyzing and Applying Polycentricity, Cambridge Press