Theda Skocpol is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. Skocpol’s first book, States and Social Revolutions (1979), won two major scholarly awards. In 1985, she co-edited the influential collection Bringing the State Back In. Her research has focused on US politics in comparative and historical perspective. Skocpol’s Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (1992) won five scholarly awards. Recent books focus on US health reform, civic engagement, the Tea Party movement, and the transformations of US domestic policies in the Obama era. Her 2013 paper “Naming the Problem” provided political context to issues of global warming. Skocpol currently directs the Scholars Strategy Network, a national organization that encourages public engagement by university-based scholars.
