M.A. in History, PhD in Political Science?

[Laguna Niguel]

Is it possible to get into a Poli-Sci PhD program with a MA in History? Also, what are your chances of actually getting in when neither of your previous degrees is in Political Science?

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Sure, it's possible...There's a decent number of political scientists with degrees in other disciplines (and certainly some in history). How it effects your chances depends on your GPA, GRE, research interests, etc., and will vary from department to department.

[jacib]

It's possible, but you'd need to really show the committees that you belong in political science and definitely not history. Tom Pepinsky at Cornell has a pretty blog post about applying to graduate schools and the most directly relevant bit says says:

Foreign applicants, especially, should also familiarize themselves with the nature of the research done by the

comparative politics

and

international relations faculty

here, to ensure that a Ph.D. in the Government department is right for you. (It’s not right for everyone, and that’s just fine.) While interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research is often praised, in practice students in the social sciences are strongly encouraged to work within their discipline. There are some exceptions: social movement scholars frequently work across political science and sociology, formal political theorists frequently work with economists, methodologists will often work with statisticians. The point is, if you really care about history rather than political science, it’s better to apply to our (excellent)

History Department

. This point may seem obvious, but many applicants appear to miss it.

Make sure your application (and probably your interests) isn't better suited for the history department, because clearly this is an issue for a lot of candidates. What theories will you be testing, what issues will you be address? Theda Skocpol's take on revolutions and her take on the rise of the welfare state in America are very different from how a historian would deal with these issues, just like Robert Putnam's work on the Italian state bridges the literatures on state making and social capital while John Padgett is now using 15th century Florence as a test case for theories about organizational innovation. Your project needs to fit into the existent literature, it can't just be "about politics". And you probably need to work harder than a kid with an undergrad in poli-sci to make an argument that your work is political science, not just about politics.

Edited October 5, 2012 by jacib

[Laguna Niguel]

Thank you all for the replies! Very informative.