Independent research
Two papers. One question.
Five summers teaching English to migrant children in northern Thailand led to one research question. A collaboration with an ASU political-science doctoral researcher raised the same question about forests in Vietnam. The question turns out to be the same in both places.
Thailand guarantees every child fifteen years of free schooling. Vietnam has formal citizen-participation and accountability mechanisms designed to protect forests. In both cases James looked for where the gap lives: between the right that's written and the power that's actually delivered.
Thailand · Qualitative
From Enrollment to Progression: How NGO Learning Centers Bridge Thailand's Migrant Education Gap
Fieldwork + expert interviewsHow do NGO learning centers expand access to English-language education and longer-term pathways for Myanmar migrant children in northern Thailand — and what institutional barriers limit their work?
Thailand has largely solved enrollment. It has not solved what comes after. NGO learning centers do the work of the middle — keeping children in school across language barriers, incomplete records, and irregular status — but do it without legal recognition, without a certification route for their community teachers, and without records that transfer. The result: a system that can enroll a child but cannot carry her to a recognized qualification.
Vietnam · Quantitative
Policy Consumers or Policy Pioneers? Participation, Vertical Accountability, and Forest Loss in Vietnam's Provinces, 2011–2024
Panel regression · satellite dataIn a single-party state with extensive decentralization on paper, does measured citizen participation and vertical accountability actually reduce forest loss?
No detectable effect — once national time trends are controlled for. An earlier version of the analysis found a significant protective effect of accountability. That result turned out to be a statistical artifact: two national trends moving in opposite directions. The paper publishes the correction. Participation is weakly associated with more tree-cover loss, not less — likely because "participation" in Vietnam runs through state-designed channels rather than autonomous citizen voice.