I am an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Merced and a research affiliate at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (ICGG) and UC Merced’s Center for Analytic Political Engagement (CAPE).

Broadly, my research examines the role that cognition and learning play in strategic decision-making. This includes questions such as:

  • Do experienced political professionals think about strategic dilemmas—such as cooperation and bargaining—differently than members of the general public? If so, how does this affect the prospects for cooperation in areas where these political elites are the primary decision-makers, such as international trade and climate policy?
  • How do decision-makers with limited information use reputation to learn about other individuals with whom they might cooperate? And, how does this affect behavior across the large number of settings where reputations are relevant—including everything from electoral politics to international alliance formation?
  • How do individuals with limited attention and cognition make choices in strategic games? And, how can we use this knowledge to improve collective decision-making in democracies?

Publications

Group Decision-making in Games

  1. The Democratic Peace and the Wisdom of Crowds
    Brad L. LeVeck and Neil Narang
    International Studies Quarterly, 2017

  2. Stylized Facts and Comparative Statics in (Social) Science Inquiry
    Neil Narang and Brad L. LeVeck
    International Studies Quarterly, 2020

  3. Hawkish Biases and Group Decision Making
    Joshua D. Kertzer, Marcus Holmes, Brad L. LeVeck and Carly Wayne
    International Organization, 2022

Elite Decision-making

  1. Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation
    Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, Brad L. LeVeck, David G. Victor and James H. Fowler
    International Organization, 2014

  2. The Role of Self Interest in Elite Bargaining
    Brad L. LeVeck, D. Alex Hughes, James H. Fowler, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton and David G. Victor
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014

  3. How Activists Perceive the Utility of International Law
    Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, Brad L. LeVeck and David G. Victor
    Journal of Politics, 2015

  4. No False Promises: How The Prospect of Non-Compliance Affects Elite Preferences for International Cooperation
    Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, Brad L. LeVeck and David G. Victor
    International Studies Quarterly, 2017

Reputation and Information

  1. Money, Reputation, and Incumbency in U.S. House Elections, or Why Marginals Have Become More Expensive
    Henry A. Kim and Brad L. LeVeck
    American Political Science Review, 2013

  2. Evidence for a scale invariant relationship between the incumbency advantage and the nationalization of US House elections 1866–2014
    Brad L. LeVeck and Stephane A. Nail
    Research and Politics, 2016

  3. How International Reputation Matters: Revisiting Alliance Violations in Context
    Brad L. LeVeck and Neil Narang
    International Interactions, 2017

  4. International reputation and alliance portfolios: How unreliability affects the structure and composition of alliance treaties
    Neil Narang and Brad L. LeVeck
    Journal of Peace Research, 2019

Evolutionary Learning and Cooperation

  1. Corruption Drives the Emergence of Civil Society
    Sherief Abdallah, Rasha Sayed, Iyad Rahwan, Brad L. LeVeck, Manuel Cebrian, Alex Rutherford and James H. Fowler
    Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 2014

  2. Detecting reciprocity at a global scale
    Morgan Frank, Nick Obradovich, Lijun Sun, Wei Lee Woon, Brad L. LeVeck and Iyad Rahwan
    Science Advances, 2018

  3. Inferring mechanisms for global constitutional progress
    Alex Rutherford, Yonatan Lupu, Manuel Cebrian, Iyad Rahwan, Brad L. LeVeck and Manuel Garcia-Herranz
    Nature Human Behaviour, 2018