U.S. PhD Programs of Political Science focusing on Latin American Politics (2008)

Out of curiosity, I spent one week conducting the following “snap-shot” survey. The 18 political science departments listed in this survey are what I consider the departments having “strong” PhD programs in Latin American politics. The original sample (N=58) of this survey is based on U.S. News and World Report’s Best Graduate School of Political Science. The information of the faculty is based on the official website of each department. The departments are listed in alphabetical order. The number in parenthesis indicates the number of Latin Americanists the department has.

My criteria of selection are simple: 1. the selected department must have at least three full-time Latin Americanists (defined as specialists in comparative politics, international relations or political economy with research interests in Latin America or in many regions including Latin America); 2. at least one of the Latin Americanists of a selected department is an associate professor or a professor; 3. the university where the department is affiliated must have an academic center or program on Latin American studies.

Of course, the selection criteria are debatable. For instance, some excellent PhD programs of political science are ruled out only because they just have one or two Latin Americanists (e.g. University of Michigan, University of Chicago, UCLA, etc). However, I still believe my criteria make sense. The departments not listed in the survey can have a very good PhD program. For them, Latin American politics are simply not their “especialidad de la casa.”

1. Columbia University (5)
Douglas Chalmers (PhD, Yale, 1962)
Isabela Mares (PhD, Harvard, 1999)
Alfred Stepan (PhD, Columbia, 1969)
Maria Victoria Murillo (PhD, Harvard, 1997)
Pablo Martin Pinto (PhD, UCSD, 2004)

2. Duke University (3)
Karen Remmer (PhD, University of Chicago, 1974)
Guillermo Trejo (PhD, University of Chicago, 2004)
Erik Wibbels (PhD, University of New Mexico, 2000)

3. Georgetown (3):
John Bailey (PhD, University of Minnesota-Wisconsin, 1972)
Eusebio Mujal-León (PhD, MIT, 1980)
Arturo Valenzuela (PhD, Columbia, 1971)

4. Harvard (6):
Robert Bates (PhD, MIT, 1969)
Jorge Domínguez (PhD, Harvard, 1972)
Jeffry Frieden (PhD, Columbia, 1984)
Steven Levitsky (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 1999)
James Robinson (PhD, Yale, 1993)
Cindy Skach (DPhil, Oxford, 1999)

5. New York University (3)
Youssef Cohen (PhD, University of Michigan, 1979)
Christopher Mitchell (PhD, Harvard, 1971)
Adam Przeworski (PhD, Northwestern, 1966)

6. Northwestern University (3)
Edward Gibson (PhD, Columbia University, 1992)
James Mahoney (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 1997)
Ben Ross Schneider (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 1987)

7. Princeton (3)
Evan S. Lieberman (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 2000)
John B Londregan (PhD, Princeton, 1988)
Deborah Yashar (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 1992)

8. Stanford University (4):
Alberto Díaz-Cayeros (PhD, Duke University, 1997)
Stephen Haber (PhD, UCLA, 1985)
Terry Karl (PhD, Stanford University, 1982)
Beatriz Magaloni (PhD, Duke University, 1997)

9. UC- Berkeley (3)
Vinod Aggarwal (PhD, Stanford, 1981)
David Collier (PhD, Harvard University, 1971)
Ruth Collier (PhD, University of Chicago, 1974)

10. UCSD (8):
Wayne Cornelius (PhD, Stanford, 1974)
Ann Craig (PhD, MIT, 1978)
Scott Desposato (PhD, UCLA, 2001)
Paul Drake (PhD, Stanford, 1971)
David Mares (PhD, Harvard, 1982)
Sebastian Saiegh (PhD, NYU, 2004)
Peter Smith (PhD, Columbia, 1966)

11. University of Florida (3)
Leslie Anderson (PhD, University of Michigan, 1987)
Benjamin Smith (PhD, University of Washington-Seattle, 2002)
Philip Williams (DPhil, Oxford, 1986)

12. UIUC (3)
Damarys Canache (PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 1999)
Jose Antonio Cheibub (PhD, University of Chicago, 1994)
Zachary Elkins (PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2003)

13. UNC at Chapel Hill (5):
Jonathan Hartlyn (PhD, Yale University, 1981)
Evelyne Huber (PhD, Yale University, 1977)
Cecilia Martinez-Gallardo (PhD, Columbia University, 2005)
Lars Schoultz (PhD, UNC, 1973)
John Stephens (PhD, Yale University, 1976)

14. University of Notre Dame (5):
Michael Coppedge (PhD, Yale, 1988)
Scott Mainwaring (PhD, Stanford, 1983)
Timothy Scully (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 1989)
Frances Hagopian (PhD, MIT, 1986)
Guillermo O’Donnell (PhD, Yale, 1987)

15. University of Pittsburgh (3):
Barry Ames (PhD, Stanford, 1974)
Scott Morgenstern (PhD, UCSD, 1996)
Aníbal Pérez-Liñán (PhD, Notre Dame, 2001)

16. UT-Austin (7):
Daniel Brinks (PhD, Notre Dame, 2004)
Henry Dietz (PhD, Stanford, 1975)
Kenneth Greene (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 2002)
Juliet Hooker (PhD, Cornell, 2001)
Wendy Hunter (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 1992)
Raúl Madrid (PhD, Stanford, 1999)
Kurt Weyland (PhD, Stanford, 1991)

17. Vanderbilt University (3):
Mitchell Seligson (PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 1974)
Jonathan Hiskey (PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 1999)
Elizabeth J. Zechmeister (PhD, Duke, 2003)

18. Yale (4):
Thad Dunning (PhD, UC-Berkeley, 2006)
Susan Stokes (PhD, Stanford, 1988)
Ana L. De La O Torres (PhD, MIT, 2007)
Elizabeth Jean Wood (PhD, Stanford, 1995)