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 Global 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, the Yale Law
Journal, 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 dynamics and consequences of urban expansion around the world.

He is co-founder and co-coordinator of the International Metropolitan Observatory project
and coordinates the Asia-Pacific Urban Environmental Governance study. At the University
of Southern California Professor Sellers is Associate Professor 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, Cities and Regions in World
Politics, and Critical Issues in American Politics: Environmental Challenges.