Paul Clements

Photo of Paul Clements
Paul Clements
Professor of Political Science and Director of the M.I.D.A. Program and C.C.P.M. Graduate Certificate
Office: 
(269) 387-5699
Fax: 
(269) 387-4930
Location: 
3354 Friedmann Hall, Mail Stop 5346
Mailing address: 
Department of Political Science
Western Michigan University
1903 W Michigan Ave
Kalamazoo MI 49008-5346 USA
Office hours: 

Monday, 2 to 3:30 p.m. and Friday, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
And by appointment.

Education: 
  • Ph.D., Public Affairs, Princeton University, 1996
  • M.P.A., Princeton University, 1992
  • B.A., Harvard University, 1984
Teaching interests: 
  • Development administration
  • Evaluation
  • Economic and Social Development Theory
  • Climate Change
Research interests: 
  • Climate change ethics, economics and political economy
  • Evaluation of foreign aid
  • Social science methodology
Bio: 

Dr. Paul Clements, professor of political science at Western Michigan University, gave a dissertation for his Ph.D. titled "Development as if Impact Mattered: A Comparative Organizational Analysis of USAID, the World Bank and CARE based on case studies of projects in Africa."

Clement's publications include:

  • Lens Into the Gandhian Movement: Five Village Development Organizations in Northeast India (Society for Developing Gramdan, 1983)
  • A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing, Managing and Evaluating Village Development Projects (Sociologia Ruralis, 1986)
  • An Approach to Poverty Alleviation for Large International Development Agencies (World Development, 1993)
  • A Poverty Oriented Cost-Benefit Approach to the Analysis of Development Projects (World Development, 1995)
  • Informational Standards in Development Agency Management (World Development, 1999)
  • Success Measures Guidebook (with Ayoka Turner and Kenneth Bailey, Development Leadership Network, 1999)
  • The Reasonable and the Rational Capacities in Political Analysis (with Emily Hauptmann, Politics & Society, 2002)
  • A Rawlsian Analysis of the Plight of Bihar (Studies in Comparative International Development, 2005)
  • Reducing World Poverty by Improving Evaluation of Development Aid (with Thomaz Chianca and Ryoh Sasaki, American Journal of Evaluation, 2008)
  • Rawlsian Political Analysis: Rethinking the Microfoundations of Social Science (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012)
  • The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Africa (Handbook of Africa’s International Relations, 2013)
  • Multilateral Development Banks and the International Monetary Fund (Research Handbook on Global Justice and International Law, 2013)
  • Rawlsian Ethics of Climate Change (Critical Criminology, 2015)
  • Improving Learning and Accountability in Foreign Aid (World Development, 2020)
  • Contractualism and Climate Change, in Dale Miller and Ben Eggleston, eds., Moral Theory and Climate Change: Ethical Perspectives on a Warming Planet, 2020, London: Routledge.
  • Book Review on John Botti, John Rawls and American Pragmatism: Between Engagement and Avoidance (The Review of Politics, 2021) 
  • Beyond Ideal Theory: Foundations for a Critical Rawlsian Theory of Climate Justice (with Paul Formosa, New Political Science, 2021)

He consults for domestic and international organizations on the design of monitoring and evaluation systems. In 2014 and 2016, he was the Democratic candidate for Congress in Michigan's Sixth District.