Placement History

Political Science PhD graduates from the University of Minnesota have placed in a variety of academic or academic-related appointments, including tenure-track or tenured academic appointments at major state flagship universities, elite private universities, and leading liberal arts colleges, as well as at smaller regional, state university branch campuses. A small but growing number of students use their PhDs to pursue non-academic research careers in government, the private nonprofit sector and NGOs, and business. Following is the historical placement information for our different subfields.

Applied Methodology

Many students who study and train in Applied Methodology place in tenure-track positions at leading universities including Georgia Tech, Arizona State, University of Indiana, University of Vienna, SUNY Buffalo, College of Wooster, University of Pittsburgh, Texas Christian University, University of South Carolina, Boston University, U.S. Naval Academy, Carleton College, Colgate University, Denver University, University of Georgia.

Our graduates have also found postdoctoral positions at institutions such as the Technical University of Munich and the University of Virginia.

International Relations

While we aim to support students in all the subfields of international relations, we have particular areas of strength in international law and humanitarianism, international conflict and security, and the study of U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy.

We have a strong and long-standing track record of training and placing PhD students in tenure track jobs at research universities and liberal arts colleges in the U.S. and internationally. Recent IR PhDs are currently teaching at—among many other leading universities—the University of California Santa Barbara, Georgia Tech, Cambridge University (UK), the University of Birmingham (UK), the University of Toronto (Canada), the University of New Hampshire, Colorado College, and the University of Alabama. Recent IR PhDs have also secured prestigious postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University, MIT, Dartmouth College, Notre Dame, Princeton University, the University of Virginia, Texas A&M University, and the Technical University of Munich (Germany). We also enthusiastically support graduate students looking to explore careers in the policy world or private sector.

Political Theory

Political Theory has historically placed its graduates at a range of institutions and prides itself on training students who work across subfields or disciplines. Our students work especially in fields of feminist theory and politics, indigenous theory and politics, revolutions, sovereignty and colonial governance, and racialized subject-formation in colonial and anti-colonial contexts.

Our placement record at top colleges, universities, and post-doctoral fellowships reflects the vibrancy and originality of our students research. Recently we have placed students at: Pembroke Center (Brown University), Rutgers University, Bowdoin, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, SOAS Postdoctoral fellowship, UC Santa Barbara, and University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Additionally, many students in other subfields have drawn extensively on Political Theory in their research, and have been gone on to tenure-track positions at the University of Toronto, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Alabama or to fellowships at Harvard Society of Fellows, and the Niehaus Center (Princeton).