Prior to her time at MIT, Nicole Wilson worked as a research assistant for two graduate students studying informal trade in Lagos, Nigeria. He was quickly charmed by the country’s vibrant commercial center, with a population of nearly 22 million.
βI had never spent more than a week or two out of the country, but I convinced myself and the people who hired me that I was adaptable enough to make it work,β says Wilson, a sixth-year political science PhD student. “My initial commitment was for three months, but I ended up loving the experience and extending it for about a year.”
During this time, Wilson learned of an event that shaped her academic future.
“There was a demolition of a large informal settlement, where people were forcibly evicted from their homes,” he recalls. Private owners, with the support of Lagos State security forces, cleared the land for a luxury residential estate. βI wanted to understand what conditions made these demolitions possible, how the land tenure system worked in Nigeria and Lagos in particular, and what kind of effects there might be when replacing informal settlements with gated communities,β says Wilson.
Today, the latter question forms the core of Wilson’s thesis. Her research examines the political behavior of an emerging middle class in Nigeria as it increasingly moves into private enclaves. Wilson’s seven years of field visits to Lagos, interviewing government officials, property managers and residents of diverse neighborhoods, have yielded a wealth of knowledge with far-reaching implications.
“The changes taking place in Lagos are similar to many other rapidly urbanizing environments in Asia and Africa,” says Wilson. Her research, she hopes, will illuminate “the political role of the middle class in democracies in the Global South.”
Pay for the service
Wilson’s work enters into an ongoing debate among social scientists. Some argue that the expanding middle class “plays an important role in democratization and the formation of a strong social contract between government and citizens,” he says. Other scholars dispute this notion, pointing to evidence of middle-class disengagement. Wilson is personally interested in the migration of the middle class to gated estates that provide a sense of isolation from the surrounding society and offer services such as electricity, water and security that would normally be provided by the state.
βGiven these changes in where and how the middle class lives, I ask what the effects are on their engagement with the state, focusing on tax compliance and political participation,β says Wilson.
People’s willingness to pay taxes depends at least somewhat on whether they are satisfied with government services. Wilson’s Lagos interviewees told her they were “dissatisfied with the government’s performance and its ability to provide reliable services, including security,” she says. Given these attitudes, he initially expected that the tax compliance of such residents would be low.
After interviewing property managers, however, Wilson’s prediction changed. “I learned that property managers, rather than simply acting as surrogates for the state, sometimes act as intermediaries, communicating taxpayer information to the government and encouraging and facilitating payments,” he says.
Wilson found that administrative data agrees with this story. “The data I collected shows that people who live on estates are actually more likely to pay their property taxes, which is surprising if you go by the logic that paying taxes is largely based on reciprocity,” he says. “If we see the opposite, we have to ask, ‘Why is this happening?’
Aside from the presence of property managers who could incentivize compliance, these neighborhoods are much more legible than the state: residents in gated communities have street addresses and can be easily located, he notes. Wilson also believes that “social norms can play a role if these neighborhoods are tight-knit.” He is currently conducting a survey of property managers to say why we are seeing these patterns.
Wilson is also in the midst of exploring the other side of her thesis question, which concerns political participation. Using recent election data and targeted surveys, it aims to estimate the participation rates of residents of gated communities as well as their participation in political protests and public meetings.
Even if residents of private communities have greater tax compliance and continued political participation, Wilson hesitates to argue that the shift to cloistered living has little consequence for democratic engagement. “Moving into these enclaves can change residents’ relationship with the wider political community, in terms of their ties to other citizens of Lagos.” In addition, if middle-class residents do not withdraw their taxes when they choose to provide private services, there may be reduced pressure on the state to improve public service delivery.
Urban politics
As a sociology and criminal justice major at the University of Georgia, Wilson explored a number of career interests. She interned at a child advocacy center, but is drawn to the front lines to focus on better understanding the institutions that shape people’s lives. After graduating, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she held a number of jobs, including at a human rights organization. A year of fellowship in an intentional community gave her time to think strategically about the next steps in her career.
At American University, he found what he was looking for: a master’s degree in justice, law and society. There, he says, “I met political scientists.” Assisting a professor in the Peace and Violence Research Lab, Wilson gained skills in data collection and statistical analysis. She found herself drawn to the field of international development, but felt she needed field research experience to decide whether she should pursue a Ph.D. She landed in Lagos, where her work on a research project solved the question. He attended MIT’s political science PhD program.
βI was drawn to MIT’s Governance Lab, with its focus on working with professionals,β he says. GOV/LAB, as it is known, works with civil society organizations and governments to test theories of political behavior and ways to make governments more accountable. Professor Lily L. Tsai, founder and lab director, co-chairs Wilson’s thesis committee, along with Associate Professor Noah Nathan.
While she has focused on Lagos, Wilson says, “I’m also interested in other cities, including the US, and I like to think of myself as more of an urban policy scholar than an African policy scholar.”
When reflecting on her academic experience, Wilson also mentions how enriching her teaching opportunities have been. In addition to assisting with quantitative methodology courses, he has served as an instructor in an experiential ethics course offered to undergraduate students and as the department’s Teaching Development Fellow through the MIT Teaching and Learning Laboratory. βI learned that I really like teaching,β she says.
After earning her doctorate, Wilson hopes “to land a job at an institution focused on teaching that allows me to continue to do research,” she says. “I want to make an impact in my work, and the influence I can have through teaching is often much more direct and tangible.”