APD (sort of) at Berkeley

[Lex]

I'm trying to figure out where to go next year, and Berkeley is one of the options. I do social policy/inequality/private governance stuff, so while I applied in American I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up doing some comparative (I'm more interested in the substantive issues than in a specific country/region). I'm also kind of interested in the politics of immigrant/ethnic minority communities.

Anyone have advice? The other option is Harvard, where I feel like understand the lay of the land a bit better.

[FuzzyDunlop]

Berkeley is a great place to do this specific topic - Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson, Jonah Levy if you want a European perspective. Hard to think of a better group specifically for APD-like approaches to social policy and welfare state issues, especially if one of your cases will be the United States.

[Lex]

This might be kind of a can of worms, but is there any reason to worry about Jacob Hacker going back to Yale?

[FuzzyDunlop]

Not that I know of, but this is not my subfield so I am not necessarily that plugged in.

[DONTDOIT]

I would go to Berkeley, the trioika of Pierson Hacker and Levy tops Harvard if you are set on a qualitative/historical approach.

Though if you are into welfare state politics (and aren't commited to a geographic focus) there is nobody better than Torben Iversen and Peter Hall at Harvard. Though, American, is relatively weak at Harvard.

In all honesty, you can't really go wrong with either so go wherever you think you would be happiest.

[browneyedgirl]

if you're interested in APD generally, you can't go wrong with Pierson/Hacker/Schickler.