Politics and Social Change
Political sociology in the broadest sense: the study of political power, comparative institutions and social structures, social movements, community organizations and civic associations, economic sociology and political economy, the sociology of development. Economic, social and cultural globalization is creating unprecedented new links between different and formerly distant peoples, and changes the relationships between nations, regions, states and societies, individuals and communities, rich and poor, men and women. It challenges and changes identities and meanings, hierarchical structures and the vocabularies of power.
The department's program in Politics and Social Change examines these phenomena from a variety of angles, ranging from community organizing and social movements in the United States to comparative European politics and globalization on a world scale. Our program is interlinked with other programs in the Politics department (comparative politics, international political economy, international relations), the Heller School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare (Sustainable International Development), History and Anthropology. And students are encouraged to take advantage of the many resources in complementary programs and centers in the Boston area (Harvard's Center for European Studies, the Kennedy School, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, Tufts and Northeastern).
Core Faculty and Research Interests
David Cunningham: Social Movements, Community Structure, Race and Ethnicity, Organizations, Youth Culture, American Society.
Gordon Fellman: Empowerment, Conflict Resolution, Peace Studies, Israeli and Palestinian Relations.
Karen V. Hansen: Feminist Politics and Movements.
Laura Miller: Politics of Information, Consumption-Related Social Movements.
George Ross: The Changing Politics of Industrial Societies, Labor and Industrial Relations, Social Movements, Europe and European Integration, Economic Sociology.
Carmen Sirianni: Community Organizing and Civic Innovation, Environmental Politics in the U.S., Public Policy for Democracy, Social Movements, Work, Organizations.
Other Resources
Brandeis Politics Department
Heller School program in Sustainable International Development
Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies at Harvard
Selected Ph.D. Graduates Emphasizing Politics and Social Change
Wini Breines, Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University; author of Community and Organization in the New Left (Rutgers University Press, 1989); and Young, White and Miserable: Growng Up Female in the 1950s (Beacon Press, 1992).
Karen Fields, Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, University of Rochester; author of Charismatic Religion as Popular Protest: The ordinary and the extraordinary in social movements (Elsevier, 1982); Revival and Rebellion in Colonial Central Africa (Princeton University Press, 1985); editor and translator of Emile Durkheim, The elementary forms of religious life (Free Press, 1995); and editor of Mamie Garvin, Lemon Swamp and other places: a Carolina memoir (Free Press, 1983).
Lewis Friedland, Professor, School of Journalism, Mass Communication, and Sociology,University of Wisconsin-Madison; author of Covering the World: International Television News Services (Twentieth Century Fund, 1992); winner of the Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Silver Baton in 1995, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award, the National Association of Black Journalists First Place in Television Broadcasting, for documentary, My Promised Land; co-author (with Carmen Sirianni) of Civic Innovation in America.
Jeffrey Herf, Professor of History, University of Maryland ; author of Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge University Press, 1984); Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Harvard University Press, 1997); and War by Other Means: Soviet Power, West German Resistance, and the Battle of the Euromissiles (Macmillan, 1991); The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propoganda during World Was II and the Holocaust (Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 2006).Robert Horwitz, Professor of Communications, University of California at San Diego; author of The Irony of Regulatory Reform: the Deregulation of American Telecommunications (Oxford University Press, 1989), Communication and Democratic Reform in South Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2001)..
Robert Irwin, Technical Instructor, MIT; author of Building a Peace System (ExPro, 1989).
Debra Osnowitz, Visiting Assistant Professor, Clark University, Department of Sociology