Theda Skocpol
| Theda Skocpol | |
|---|---|
Theda Skocpol speaking about the Tea Party at the Munk School
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| Born |
May 4, 1947 Detroit, Michigan |
| Residence | Cambridge, MA |
| Citizenship | U.S.A. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields |
Civic engagement, Comparative sociology, Historical institutionalism |
| Institutions | Harvard University |
| Alma mater |
Michigan State University (B.A.) Harvard University (M.A.) and (Ph.D.) |
| Academic advisors | Barrington Moore, Jr. |
| Known for | • States and Social Revolutions • Diminished Democracy • State Autonomy Theory |
| Notable awards | Johan Skytte Prize |
Theda Skocpol (born May 4, 1947) is an American sociologist and political scientist author who teaches at Harvard University. She currently serves as the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology.
Skocpol is influential in sociology as an advocate of the historical-institutional and comparative approaches. She is well known in political science for her "state autonomy theory." Skocpol has written widely for both popular and academic audiences. She has written and/or edited dozens of scholarly books, publications, journals, and articles. Skocpol's works and opinions have been associated with the structuralist school. As an example, she argues that social revolutions can best be explained given their relation with specific structures of agricultural societies and their respective states.
Skocpol gives equal importance to the role of international forces, especially their influence on state and social structures of a given society. Such an approach differs greatly from more "behaviorist" ones, which tend to emphasize the role of "revolutionary populations," "revolutionary psychology," and/or "revolutionary consciousness," as determinant factors of revolutionary processes.
Theda Skocpol was born in Detroit, Michigan on May 4, 1947. She earned her B.A. at Michigan State University in 1969. She then went on to earn her M.A. (1972), and Ph.D. at Harvard University (1975). While attending Harvard University, Skocpol studied with Barrington Moore Jr.
From 1975-1981, Skocpol served as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Sociology, at Harvard University. During this time, Skocpol published her first of many books, this one called States and Social Revolutions: A comparative Analysis of Social Revolutions in Russia, France and China (1979).
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