PhD Schools

[Engy]

I have a master's degree in conflict resolution and i am seeking to pursue a PhD in political science as I am interested in shifting my career to academia. In looking for a school to apply for, shall i go by international ranking or by programs? what is the most reliable ranking for universities by programs? If i considered a program that i like in a school that has a lower ranking compared to my master's degree, would that affect my job-hunting afterwards? thanks for the advice in advance. 

[fuzzylogician]

You should be searching schools based on research interests, not rankings. What do you want to study in grad school? If you can't answer that question, you need to pause and seriously think about why you want to apply for a PhD in the first place. If you have a well-defined area of research, you want to find the schools where the top researchers in that field are teaching and apply there. As for post-PhD prospects, that really depends on what you want to do. If it's academia, what's going to matter most is your own research, then I would say your advisor's reputation and connections, then your department's, then your school's reputation. For industry jobs, the school's name might matter more because employers won't know individual people as well, but if they are hiring political scientists on a regular basis, they will still know where the good programs are. 

[ExponentialDecay]

Ask your professors for advice.