INFORMATION Regarding Letters of RECOMMENDATION
I am committed to supporting excellent students by providing letters of recommendation endorsing their applications for internships, employment, or graduate study. However, because I receive many student requests for letters of recommendation, I will only write one under the following conditions:
For all students: I will only write letters if you provide me with at least one month of time to complete/submit the letter and share your application materials with me (ex. resume, personal statement, transcripts, etc.) well in advance of the due date, in addition to the conditions below.
For students applying for employment, internships, or graduate studies (besides PhDs): I will only write letters if you successfully completed a course I taught with at least an A- grade or, if you did not take a class I taught, I will only write a letter if I have known you through some regular professional relationship (ex. research assistance, teaching assistance) for at least one academic semester. If I don’t know you well, or if you got a lower grade in a course I taught, then I won’t be able to write you a strong and personalized letter, and these are the only letters that I will agree to write.
For PhD applicants: I will only write letters in exceptional circumstances for exceptional students that I know well, after a extensive conversation about your plans for doctoral work. PhD admissions are extremely competitive, PhD programs are challenging and stressful, and the academic job market is quite atrocious; in most cases I will dissuade you from pursuing a PhD. I will on occasion break this rule and write letters for students that I have known for at least one academic year, who have completed least one course that I taught with an A grade and/or performed research/teaching assistance at a very high level.
Outlines & Resources
Below you will find outlines and critical reviews of various pieces of political, legal, and social science scholarship. They are far from comprehensive, have not been kept up-to-date, and their coverage follows no particular logical schema. Hopefully they may still be of interest to anyone seeking an introduction to certain canonical works of comparative politics, qualitative methods, public law, and the social sciences (or to any graduate student preparing for general examinations!).
COMPARATIVE POLITICS
Contentious Politics in Italy (Tarrow 1989; Della Porta 1995; Ginsborg 2003)
Lerner-Passing of Traditional Society & Boix- Democracy and Redistribution
Goldstone-CHA and Knowledge Accumulation in the Study of Revolutions
Schepsle-Studying Institutions: Lessons from the Rational Choice Approach
Temporality & Contention (Collier & Collier 1991; Beissinger 2002; Sewell 2005)