The late J. Tyler Dickovick was associate professor of politics at Washington and Lee University. He was author of Decentralization and Recentralization in the Developing World: Comparative Studies from Africa and Latin America and coauthor of Comparative Politics: Integrating Theories, Methods, and Cases. James S. Wunsch is professor of political science and international studies at Creighton University. His publications include Local Governance in Africa: The Challenge of Democratic Decentralization and The Failure of the Centralized State: Institutions and Self-Governance in Africa.