About
The Department of Government at Wesleyan University offers a dynamic and rigorous study of politics, policy, and power in the United States and around the world. Our faculty are committed to helping students explore the institutions, ideas, and forces that shape political life, from the founding principles of democracy to the most pressing challenges of the 21st century.
Students in Government develop strong analytical, research, and communication skills while engaging deeply with political theory, comparative politics, American politics, and international relations. Through small classes, close faculty mentorship, and a culture of inquiry, the department encourages students to question assumptions, think critically, and connect their studies to real-world issues.
Our Alumni
For decades, our alumni have gone on to make an impact in law, public policy, journalism, education, business, the nonprofit sector, and international affairs. Many pursue graduate study in political science, law, public administration, or related fields. Whether working in government, advocating for social change, or leading organizations, our graduates bring the skills and perspectives they developed at Wesleyan into every sphere of civic life.
Our History
Since its founding, the Department of Government has been a cornerstone of Wesleyan’s liberal arts curriculum. Our faculty includes nationally recognized scholars whose research and teaching have influenced the study of politics across disciplines.
By Richard W. Boyd, Professor, Department of Government, February 2005
(Revisions and updates by James W. McGuire, Professor and Chair, Department of Government, July 2012, July 2017)
Faculty Members of the Department of Government since 1935
In 1862 Wesleyan created a Department of Moral Philosophy, which in the 1880s split into three departments: Mental Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, and History and Political Economy. The future President Woodrow Wilson joined the History and Political Economy Department in 1888 and published his book The State: Elements of Historical and Practical Politics during his two years of teaching at Wesleyan. In 1890, when Professor Wilson moved to Princeton, the institutional economist John R. Commons taught in the History and Political Economy Department until, as he acknowledges in his autobiography, being terminated after one year for poor teaching.
The national associations for history, economics, and political science were founded in 1884, 1886, and 1903 respectively. Wesleyan’s departments reflect these national disciplinary developments. In 1890 History and Political Economy split into a combined History and Government department and a separate Political Economy department, subsequently to become the Department of Economics.
With the support of a $300,000 grant from the Surdna Foundation in 1935, Wesleyan separated History and Government into its current two departments, the latter named formally “The John E. Andrus Department of Government.” The 1935-36 departmental masthead included three faculty members: Sigmund Neumann, E. E. Schattschneider, and Ralph Frederic Bishoff. Schattschneider, Wesleyan’s most illustrious department member, had joined the faculty in 1930 and spent all but the initial two years of his professional life at Wesleyan. At the department’s founding, Schattschneider was named John E. Andrus Associate Professor of Government. He became the John E. Andrus Professor of Government in 1939 and held this title until his retirement in 1960.
By 1945 the Government Department had developed a remarkably distinguished faculty. Victor Jones, Steven K. Bailey, and Alan B. Overstreet had joined Schattschneider and Neumann. Bailey left Wesleyan in 1954 to direct the Woodrow Wilson Center at Princeton, and Jones departed in 1955 for the University of California, Berkeley. The department grew to eight faculty members in 1955, including Joseph C. Palamountain, who would later serve as Wesleyan’s Provost and as Skidmore’s President.
In the early 1960s Wesleyan had an exceptionally high endowment per student, and the University invested it in a major expansion of programs and faculty members. Between 1960 and 1972 faculty size roughly doubled. With this expansion the Government Department grew rapidly, numbering 11 faculty members by 1965. The Department proved particularly successful in recruiting new Ph.D.s from Yale, including Fred I. Greenstein, Nelson W. Polsby, Richard M. Merelman, and Russell D. Murphy. With academically gifted undergraduates, a two-course per semester teaching load, and the opportunity to teach small classes, the department attracted professionally ambitious new faculty with strong research records. Some would subsequently leave Wesleyan to join universities with Ph.D. programs. This professional mobility has distinguished the Wesleyan government faculty since the 1950s and remains part of its texture.
List of members of the Department of Government, Wesleyan University, since its founding in 1935. Source: Alumni Record of Wesleyan University 1831-1980. 11th ed. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University, 1981. Subsequent additions by Richard W. Boyd (2004) and James W. McGuire (2012, 2016, 2017).
Abizadeh, Arash. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2000-02
Adamany, David Walter. Ph.D., LL.B. Assistant Professor 1967-69; Associate Professor 1969-73
Bailey, Stephen Kemp. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1946-50; Associate Professor 1950-54
Baldwin, Sidney. Ph.D. Instructor 1952-54
Barnhart Trager, Joslyn. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2013-2021
Bartholomew, Reginald. M.A. Instructor 1964-68
Bischoff, Ralph Frederic Ph.D., LL.B. Teaching Fellow 1934-35; Instructor 1935-38; Assistant Professor 1938-46
Boyd, Richard W. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1969-76; Associate Professor 1976-84; Professor 1984-2006; Emeritus
Bridge, Susan McCarthy. M.A. Assistant Professor 1972-76
Chakravarti, Sonali. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2009-2016; Associate Professor 2016-2021; Professor 2021-
Chenoweth, Erica. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2008-11
Craig, Barbara H. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1982-88; Associate Professor 1985-95; Professor 1995-2001; Emerita
Crenshaw, Martha. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1974-81; Associate Professor 1981-87; Professor 1987-2007; Emerita
Crittenden, John Allen. B.A. Instructor 1957-59
Daley, Anthony. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1987-94
Dancey, Logan. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2012-2019; Associate Professor 2019-
Einaudi, Luigi Roberto. B.A. Instructor 1961-62
Eisner, Marc Allen. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1989-95; Associate Professor 1995-99; Professor 2000-
Filley, Walter Owen Jr. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1951-58
Finn, John E. J.D., Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1986-92; Associate Professor 1992-99; Professor 1999-2017; Emeritus
Foyle, Douglas C. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1998-2006; Associate Professor 2006-
Fowler, Erika Franklin. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2009-2016; Associate Professor 2016-2020; Professor 2020-
Gallagher, Nancy. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1990-97
Gallarotti, Giulio M. Ph.D. Assistant Professor, 1987-94; Associate Professor 1994-2008; Professor 2009-
Gelb, Leslie H. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1964-67
Golden, Miriam. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1984-88
Greenhill, Kelly. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2005-07
Greenstein, Fred I. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1962-66; Professor 1966-74
Grumm, John G. Ph.D. Professor 1969-91
Haddad, Mary Alice. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2004-11; Associate Professor 2011-15; Professor 2015-
Hagel, Nina. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2019-
Hanson, Kolby. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2023-
Howard, Lise Morjé, Assistant Professor 2002-04
Herzberg, Donald Gabriel. B.A. Instructor 1948-50
Jones, Victor. Ph.D. Associate Professor 1946-50; Professor 1950-55
Lahav, Gallya. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1998-99
Liska, George. Ph.D. Professor 1963-64
Lim, Elvin. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2008-11; Associate Professor 2011-16
Lockard, William Noble. M.A. Instructor 1950-51
Mangone, Gerald Joseph. Ph.D. Instructor 1949; Assistant Professor 1949-51
Mark, Alyx. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2019-
Markovits, Andrei. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1977-82
Matesan, Ioana Emy. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2014-2021; Associate Professor 2021-
Merelman, Richard M. Ph.D. Instructor 1964-65; Assistant Professor 1965-66
McGuire, James W. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1988-95; Associate Professor 1995-2003; Professor 2003-
Moon, James Donald. Ph.D. Instructor 1970-71; Assistant Professor 1971-77; Associate Professor 1977-83; Professor 1983-2021. Emeritus
Moore, Steven T. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2020-
Murphy, James Thomas. Ph.D. Lecturer 1968-69; Assistant Professor 1969-76
Murphy, Russell Davis. Ph.D. Instructor 1966-68; Assistant Professor 1968-70; Associate Professor 1970-78; Professor 1978-2011; Emeritus
Naruck, Henry John. LL.B. Instructor 1954-55
Neumann, Sigmund. Ph.D., LL.D. Economics & Social Science. Lecturer 1934-39 Government & Social Science. Associate Professor 1939-44 Social Sciences. Professor 1944-60
Nelson, Michael B. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2008-2017
Newbury, M. Catherine. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1977-85; Associate Professor 1985-86
Norris, Steven. M.A. Instructor 1970-73
Overstreet, Alan Burr. M.A. Instructor 1941-46; Assistant Professor 1946-47
Owens, John Robert. M.A. Instructor 1955-56
Palamountain, Joseph Cornwall. Ph.D., L.H.D. Associate Professor 1955-59; Professor 1959-65
Panning, William. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1976-80
Payne, James L. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1966-70
Peck, Justin. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2017-
Polsby, Nelson W. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1961-64; Associate Professor 1964-67; Professor 1967-68
Platt, James Worthington. M.A. Instructor 1956-59
Prescott, Francis Calvin. M.A. Instructor 1947-48
Price, Melanye T. Ph.D. Predoctoral Fellow 2003; Assistant Professor 2003-10
Ramesh, Hari Narayan, Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2021-
Rim, Kathy. Ph.D. Assistant Professor, 2011-13
Rosengren, Orvar Arne. M.A. Instructor 1947-48
Rutland, Peter. Ph.D. Associate Professor 1992-98; Professor 1998-
Sanford, Thomas Michael. M.A. Instructor 1959-61; Assistant Professor 1961-65
Schattschneider, Elmer Eric. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1930-35; Associate Professor 1935-39; John E. Andrus Associate Professor 1935-39; John E. Andrus Professor 1939-60
Schumacher, Edward Jay. Ph.D. Lecturer 1969-70; Assistant Professor 1970-77
Schwartz, Nancy. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1977-85; Associate Professor 1985-95; Professor 1995-2018. Emerita
Sigal, Leon V. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1973-77; Associate Professor 1977-83; Professor 1983-88
Silverstein, Joseph. Ph.D. Instructor 1958-59; Assistant Professor 1959-64
Spegele, Roger D. Ph.D. Lecturer 1967-69; Assistant Professor 1969-72
Sweeney, John Worth Jr. Ph.D. Lecturer 1969-1972; Assistant Professor 1972-77
Taylor, Paul Bennett. M.A. Instructor 1939-41
Tenzer, Morton Jay M.A. Instructor 1957-62
Titus, David Anson Ph.D. Lecturer 1966-70; Assistant Professor 1970-73; Associate Professor 1973-79; Professor 1979-2003
Tökes, Rudolf. Ph.D. Instructor 1964-65; Assistant Professor 1965-70
Velez, Yamil R., Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2015-2019
Verdeja, Ernesto. Ph.D. Instructor 2004; Assistant Professor 2005-08
Vose, Clement Ellery Ph.D. Associate Professor 1958-61; Professor 1961-84
Watts, Gerry G.. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1984-89
Wedeen, Lisa. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1996-97
Weltman, John J. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1967-71
Wiliarty, Sarah Elise. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2002-11; Associate Professor 2011-
Williams, Oliver Perry. M.A. Assistant Professor 1955-57
Wood, Robert C. Ph.D. Professor 1983-93
Young, Brigitte. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 1991-96
Zimmerman, Anne Mariel. Ph.D. Assistant Professor 2009-13
