Jefferey M. Sellers studies urban, environmental and social policies and
their politics from a global perspective. His research focuses on the international
comparison of state-society relations, multi-level decision-making processes and urban
regions . His first book, Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy
(Cambridge University Press, 2002), scrutinized the sources and consequences of
localized governance in eleven urban regions throughout Europe and North America. He is
co-editor (with Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot) of Metropolitanization and Political
Change (Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2005), and one of the authors of the
First World Report on Local Democracy and Decentralization. His work has appeared
in such journals as Environment and Planning C, the European Journal of Political Research,
Governance, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of
Urban Affairs, Landscape and Urban Planning, the Urban Affairs Review, and in numerous
edited volumes. His ongoing research examines worldwide variations in localized
governance and civil society; the growing influence of urban regions on politics and policy;
the comparative historical development of decentralization and local democracy; and the
changing shape of urban regions around the world.

He is co-founder and co-coordinator of the International Metropolitan Observatory project
and coordinates the Pacific Rim Urban Environmental Governance study. At the University
of Southern California Professor Sellers is Associate Professor and Graduate Director in
the Department of Political Science, with courtesy appointments in the Department of
Geography and the School of Policy, Planning and Development. His courses include
Comparative Politics, Urban Political Problems, European Politics, Environmental Law,
Institutions and Politics, The Politics of Law in Global Perspective, Cities and Regions in
World Politics, and Critical Issues in American Politics: Environmental Challenges.