Peter Baker, Internship Director

 

Birth Place :: Mt. Clemens, MI Ph.D.: Political Science, University of Notre Dame M.A.: Political Science, University of Notre Dame B.A.: Political Science, Olivet Nazarene University

Peter joined ASP as a faculty member and internship director in July 2008.  He arrives with a background in both academic research and business development that includes a significant amount of work experience outside the U.S.

Peter earned a Ph.D. degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame in May 2008.  His primary fields of study were comparative politics (democratization studies, state-building processes) and international relations (international political economy, transnational crime).  From August 2002 to October 2004, Peter lived in Kyiv, Ukraine, conducting field work in support of his doctoral thesis.  He adds that his wife, Lisa-Jo, served as a legal analyst in the Counter-Human Trafficking program of the International Organization for Migration—Ukraine country office.  Peter has advanced language training in both Russian and Ukrainian. 

Peter’s research findings from surveying international governmental and non-governmental organizations working in Ukraine led him to take a more active interest in the study of organizational development and change management.  From January 2005 through October 2006, Peter engaged in independent study of these topics while working as a consultant on projects related to policy research or organizational development in Pretoria, South Africa—his wife’s homeland.

Eager to put his textbook knowledge of organizational development and change management into practice, in October 2006, Peter accepted a position as project coordinator for a development-stage company working to construct and operate a large biofuels production facility in mid-Michigan.  Over the course of his 14-month tenure, Peter’s primary duties involved supporting investor relations and directing the marketing campaign for the company’s public offering. 

Peter retains an active research and publication agenda.  Entitled ‘The Politics of Taxation and State Building in Ukraine, 882-2004’, his doctoral thesis investigates the historical evolution of the fiscal base of state power in Ukraine and how this influenced the development of state capacity and state-society relations during the country’s post-Soviet period.  The research is part of a bourgeoning literature on taxation and state building in developing countries.  The research agenda is motivated by the widespread concern over the inability of governments in some parts of the world to exercise effective authority and this failure makes room for more threatening forces to thrive (e.g. armed militias, arms smugglers, human traffickers, narcotics enterprises, warlords).  A foundational premise of this body of work asserts that differences in sources of state revenue to a significant degree explain variation in the strength of states and how they relate to citizens.  Simply put, it matters that governments tax their citizens rather than survive off of foreign aid and oil revenues, and it matters how they tax them.  Peter looks forward to joining an active community of scholars in Washington, D.C that are working on these research questions as they relate to post-Communist countries in general and Ukraine in particular.

Peter and Lisa-Jo (Rous), were both students at ASP in the Spring semester of 1996.  They were married in 1999.  Lisa-Jo holds a law degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School.  They have two sons, Jackson Jo (August 2005) and Micah Peter (December 2007).  Prior to arriving in DC in August 2008, the family attended Christ Vineyard Church in Owosso, Michigan, where Peter served on Council.

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