Douglas I. Thompson

Welcome! I am a political theorist at the University of South Carolina in sunny Columbia. I work on contemporary democratic theory, comparative political theory, public administration, and urban and metropolitics. My current book project is a global history of ideas about bureaucracy, from ancient Mesopotamia to the present. It is tentatively titled Bureaucracy and Public Goods: A New Global History of Political Thought. At a time when attacks on the "administrative state" have become a staple of ultrapartisan politics in multiple countries, the book reminds us that the administrative production of public goods such as basic political stability, social insurance against disaster, and civil freedoms has been a constant in human societies for over 5,000 years. For more on the book and related articles, see my research page. 

The picture above shows the southernmost baobab tree in Africa, located in Kruger National Park in South Africa. It is around 1,500 years old. I like to think of this tree as I try to grasp the long timescale and global extension of my book project.