From 2014 to 2022, Levi was the Sara Miller McCune Director of the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at
Stanford University. At the
University of Washington she was director of the CHAOS (Comparative Historical Analysis of Organizations and States) Center. She previously served as the
Harry Bridges Chair and Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington. Levi's book
Of Rule and Revenue (1988), a study of the institutions of state
revenue production, helped pioneer
rational choice approaches in
comparative politics. She has since "pushed rational choice analysis into new substantive areas", for example, in examining people's acceptance of military
conscription in
Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (1997).
Cooperation Without Trust? (Russell Sage, 2005), and
Labor Standards in International Supply Chains (Edward Elgar, 2015).
In the Interest of Others (Princeton, 2013), co-authored with John Ahlquist, explores how organizations provoke member willingness to act beyond material interest. In other work, Levi investigates the conditions under which people come to believe their governments are legitimate and the consequences of those beliefs for compliance, consent, and the rule of law. Her research continues to focus on how to improve the quality of government. She is also committed to understanding and improving supply chains so that the goods we consume are produced in a manner that sustains both the workers and the environment. Levi started The Brand Responsibility Project—a research project to document the campaign and dispute settlement between
Nike, Inc. and the
Central General de Trabajadores of Honduras (CGT). CGT claimed that Nike was responsible for providing terminal compensation, benefits and priority rehiring for 1,800 factory employees following the 2009 bankruptcy and closure of two Honduran factories (Hugger and VisionTex) that were part of Nike's supply chain. While director of CASBS, much of Levi's scholarship focused on political economy, theories of change, and institutional design in what Levi and her collaborators describe as framework for a new "moral political economy." Levi was general editor of the series Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. She is a member editor of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) Levi has served on the boards of the:
Social Science Research Council (SSRC);
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; Center for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (CEACS) in Madrid; Scholar and Research Group of the
World Justice Project, and the
Berggruen Institute. Her fellowships include the Woodrow Wilson in 1968, German Marshall in 1988–1989, and the Center for Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences in 1993–1994. She has been a visiting fellow at the
Australian National University,
Brown University, the
European University Institute, the
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, the
Juan March institute, the Budapest Collegium,
Cardiff University, the
University of Oxford,
Bergen University, and
Peking University. ==Awards and honors==