makeitstopalready

Please don't let the first-years and MA students here be too discouraging. 

What is more important than picking some narrow specialty at this point is identifying a personal reason for wanting to pursue the PhD, and then allowing that to guide your decisions. Human rights, transitional justice, and all the other things you list are FINE as research interests, and you could go pretty far saying those things. What you have to figure out is what animates your desire to do research, find a place and people that would be supportive of that, and proceed from that point. You can easily narrow down schools that have faculty and facilities that would make that possible.

Your legal background will actually be a strength if you were to pursue a PhD in this or a cognate field. You can credibly claim to have experiences that sharpen your interests.

And don't listen to the advice to pick up the nearest copy of American Political Science Review, which is in no way, shape, or form the top journal for the kinds of things you're interested in. Pick up a copy of International Organizations or International Studies Quarterly, which are much closer to where you'd be aiming yourself in future in any case.
 
Good luck, and I hope you find the proper path for you.

Most successful political scientists do sustained work on one or a few related topics over their careers.  You listing a lot of weakly related topics is just setting off a lot of alarm bells, since most successful graduate students and faculty members do not and cannot sustain research in such a wide range of areas.
 
It's hard to say whether you should get a PhD and where you should do it without a particular area of current research in mind.  Political Psychology and Political Theory are both huge research areas, and schools will have many people doing different strands of work in those areas.  The other topics are also areas of research in their own right, though it's unlikely that any program would be able to serve you well in all of them.  
 
I'd suggest picking out some research in the areas you're interested in recent top journals (APSR, AJPS, JOP, WP, IO) or top university presses and seeing who wrote them and who they're responding to.  That'll help give you some guidance on who's working on those subjects.
 
If you are a plausible candidate for a top-6 school, you should also look through their faculties and pick out 3 people that you'd be happy working with at each place.  If you can't find 3 such people, don't bother applying to those places and go looking further down the list.  In general, you want to go to a top program or the place where you'd have the best advisor.  Start from the top and work your way down the list.

Please don't let the first-years and MA students here be too discouraging. 

What is more important than picking some narrow specialty at this point is identifying a personal reason for wanting to pursue the PhD, and then allowing that to guide your decisions. Human rights, transitional justice, and all the other things you list are FINE as research interests, and you could go pretty far saying those things. What you have to figure out is what animates your desire to do research, find a place and people that would be supportive of that, and proceed from that point. You can easily narrow down schools that have faculty and facilities that would make that possible.

Your legal background will actually be a strength if you were to pursue a PhD in this or a cognate field. You can credibly claim to have experiences that sharpen your interests.

And don't listen to the advice to pick up the nearest copy of American Political Science Review, which is in no way, shape, or form the top journal for the kinds of things you're interested in. Pick up a copy of International Organizations or International Studies Quarterly, which are much closer to where you'd be aiming yourself in future in any case.
 
Good luck, and I hope you find the proper path for you.

Please don't let the first-years and MA students here be too discouraging. 

What is more important than picking some narrow specialty at this point is identifying a personal reason for wanting to pursue the PhD, and then allowing that to guide your decisions. Human rights, transitional justice, and all the other things you list are FINE as research interests, and you could go pretty far saying those things. What you have to figure out is what animates your desire to do research, find a place and people that would be supportive of that, and proceed from that point. You can easily narrow down schools that have faculty and facilities that would make that possible.

Your legal background will actually be a strength if you were to pursue a PhD in this or a cognate field. You can credibly claim to have experiences that sharpen your interests.

And don't listen to the advice to pick up the nearest copy of American Political Science Review, which is in no way, shape, or form the top journal for the kinds of things you're interested in. Pick up a copy of International Organizations or International Studies Quarterly, which are much closer to where you'd be aiming yourself in future in any case.
 
Good luck, and I hope you find the proper path for you.

Please don't let the first-years and MA students here be too discouraging. 

What is more important than picking some narrow specialty at this point is identifying a personal reason for wanting to pursue the PhD, and then allowing that to guide your decisions. Human rights, transitional justice, and all the other things you list are FINE as research interests, and you could go pretty far saying those things. What you have to figure out is what animates your desire to do research, find a place and people that would be supportive of that, and proceed from that point. You can easily narrow down schools that have faculty and facilities that would make that possible.

Your legal background will actually be a strength if you were to pursue a PhD in this or a cognate field. You can credibly claim to have experiences that sharpen your interests.

And don't listen to the advice to pick up the nearest copy of American Political Science Review, which is in no way, shape, or form the top journal for the kinds of things you're interested in. Pick up a copy of International Organizations or International Studies Quarterly, which are much closer to where you'd be aiming yourself in future in any case.
 
Good luck, and I hope you find the proper path for you.

Please don't let the first-years and MA students here be too discouraging. 

What is more important than picking some narrow specialty at this point is identifying a personal reason for wanting to pursue the PhD, and then allowing that to guide your decisions. Human rights, transitional justice, and all the other things you list are FINE as research interests, and you could go pretty far saying those things. What you have to figure out is what animates your desire to do research, find a place and people that would be supportive of that, and proceed from that point. You can easily narrow down schools that have faculty and facilities that would make that possible.

Your legal background will actually be a strength if you were to pursue a PhD in this or a cognate field. You can credibly claim to have experiences that sharpen your interests.

And don't listen to the advice to pick up the nearest copy of American Political Science Review, which is in no way, shape, or form the top journal for the kinds of things you're interested in. Pick up a copy of International Organizations or International Studies Quarterly, which are much closer to where you'd be aiming yourself in future in any case.
 
Good luck, and I hope you find the proper path for you.