Jeremy Levine

Jeremy Levine is generally interested in the politics of poverty and inequality, primarily in US cities. He has published articles on the political role of community-based nonprofits in poor neighborhoods, cultural processes and inequality in participatory democracy, and the relationship between neighborhood racial composition and an important, but under-studied political behavior: contacting government for basic city services.

His first book, Constructing Community (Princeton University Press, 2021), is an ethnography of urban governance and the role of private nonprofits in community development policy. He presented key findings from the book at UM’s Ross School of Business and recently spoke about the book with University of Cambridge Judge Business School’s Social Innovation Think Tank. See more interviews and presentations about the book here.

His current major project traces the historical development of crime victim policy in the United States, its unique position bridging the “Left hand” (social welfare) and “Right hand” (penal) of the state, and the material consequences for racial inequality. He presented the first paper from this project, a comparative-historical analysis of victim compensation law, at the Poverty Penalty Symposium sponsored by the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform.