Have globalization and market-oriented reforms constrained or empowered domestic government efforts to provide broad-based education? How should developing country governments engage the private sector in the provision of education? What is the effect of political and administrative decentralization on parental participation and educational outcomes? This course will explore these and other questions as we try to understand the role that political institutions, elected leaders, civil society, and bureaucrats play in the provision of education across the developing world. We will ask who the key actors, interests, and incentives are in education politics through individual case studies across various countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South and East Asia. By the end of the course we will have learned to identify the incentives of actors, their options, and how to best engage them in education policy making. The class will use a series of case studies, policy evaluations, and theoretical readings to explore these questions in the context of the politics of the developing world. The emphasis will be on real world examples and policies, and we will leave with a broader understanding of the incentives and constraints political actors face in the developing world.