Women & Politics Programs?

[ludacristiano]

Hello all,

 

I'm currently a PoliSci Master's student at Lehigh University looking to do a PhD in the field down the road. I'm particularly interested in Women and Politics, both from comparative and theoretical perspectives.

 

I've heard a lot about Rutgers' Women and Politics program (http://www.sas.rutgers.edu/cms/polisci/dmdocuments/women.pdf) and am looking for other PhD programs that have a strong department in this subdiscipline.

 

Ideally I'm looking for a fairly progressive program that allows for both interdisciplinary-type studies (politics, gender, race and ethnicity) while also giving people room to explore career paths outside academia (through mass publication writing).

 

Do any programs come to mind? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[cooperstreet]

In political science? they are rare. Rutgers is the best. Why not take a short drive from bethlehem to new brunswick and try and talk to some profs? also beware that Rutgers has funding issues.

[ludacristiano]

In political science? they are rare. Rutgers is the best. Why not take a short drive from bethlehem to new brunswick and try and talk to some profs? also beware that Rutgers has funding issues.

 I plan to! Do you know of other similar programs though? I'd like to have more than one option.

 

Also what do you mean about funding issues?

[cooperstreet]

meaning rutgers is a state school and can't fund all their students.

[victorydance]

Do you know who Mala Htun is? She is a professor at University of New Mexico and does a lot of comparativist work on the state and women.

 

I suggest looking for scholars who fall within this category, not programs that are geared towards this. 

[cooperstreet]

I disagree. You will need more than one scholar studying this at your institution, for a wide variety of reasons.

 

However, if you want to have comparative politics be your focus, and also study women, just one scholar in the political science department may work, if there are others in other departments.

 

If you put on your SOP, "I want to study women in politics" and the adcom is all like, "we only have one person doing that and they are primarily a comparativist", then you're in trouble.

[cooperstreet]

For example, Mala Htun has two books with CUP and a APSR article, she could easily go somewhere else.

[victorydance]

I understand what you are saying, and I would agree if it was a broader topic, but the fact is you aren't going to find that many departments with a strong focus on politics and women. In fact, that's probably exactly why this thread even exists, because the OP couldn't find any really. 

 

I am just saying that it might be a better strategy to look for scholars that do research on the subject and base your search around them, rather than look for departments that specialize in this because there may not be many. 

[ludacristiano]

Mala Htun seems to be doing extremely interesting research, but as one of you said I'd be worried about going to a school based on just one faculty's interests. My initial example, Rutgers, has several who do work on gender politics/politics of women, so I'm hoping to find others.

 

Also to clarify, I'm interested in women and politics from BOTH a comparative and theory perspective. Would love to get a sense of some good departments for feminist political theory. An adviser I respect recommended the following for that: University of Washington, UNC, Minnesota, McGill, Berkeley.

 

Do people agree? Are there others? I'm also currently looking at Brown, CUNY and The New School for various reasons (ex. interdisciplinary approaches, strong theory departments)

[AuldReekie]

The best way for you to find out is to go to the department's faculty pages and open up a lot of tabs 

[puddle]

APSA has a Women and Politics Research Section. Check out the title-holders, chairs, council members etc. as well as panel members for different years -  http://www.apsanet.org/content.asp?contentid=297. The sexuality and politics section may also be of interest to you.