Specific Resources
Letters of reference/recommendation
I am open to writing letters of reference for undergraduate students who meet the following minimum criteria.
The student has earned a final grade of at least A- in at least one class with me.
The student asks for the letter at least two weeks in advance.
The student provides me with the following information and materials at least two weeks in advance: (1) a clear description of what the student is applying for, (2) the student’s CV, (3) any statement of interest/purpose/cover letter that the student must submit as part of the application, (4) a copy of the student’s final assignment(s) for any course(s) taken with me, (5) a transcript with grades earned in all courses taken to date (unofficial is fine), and (6) explicit instructions about how the letter of reference is to be submitted.
Meeting these minimum criteria does not guarantee that I will agree to write a letter. In order to increase the chances that I will be able to agree, undergraduate students should try to meet the following more demanding criteria.
The student has taken several courses with me in which they have earned final grades of at least A-.
The student asks for the letter at least one month in advance.
The student provides me with the information and material listed above at least one month in advance.
If you would like me to write you a letter of reference, please start by sending me an email at amcqueen[at]stanford[dot]edu
Should I do a PhD in political theory?
Let me be honest. You should pursue a PhD in political theory only if you can’t think of any better way to spend the next five to seven years of your life than exploring foundational political questions, with no guarantee of an academic job at the end. In thinking about this, try to imagine yourself at the end of the PhD. You’re likely nearing 30, some of your friends from college may have stable jobs, houses, and kids. You will be in a very different situation.
If you still want a career in academia after finishing your PhD (some people don’t, which is both understandable and completely fine), you will be taking a chance on an extremely tight academic job market. You face three types of scenario.
The best-case scenario is any tenure-track position (this includes positions in parts of the country or the world where you might never have imagined living). The competition for these jobs is fierce and, once a certain quality threshold is passed, there is a lot of luck involved. Those of us who have been the beneficiaries of this luck ought to be honest about it and humbled by it.
The middle-range scenario is a series of itinerant academic positions (postdoctoral fellowships, visiting assistant professorships, quasi-administrative positions) that require frequent moves and a willingness to endure a fair bit of financial uncertainty. On the positive side, these positions present a chance to build an academic and intellectual network and to live in new and interesting places.
The worst-case scenario is no academic job at all. Some people who end up in this position regret having studied political theory rather than, say, empirical political science or data science, which might have better prepared them to pursue well-paying private sector jobs. Others may wish they had gone to law school. (If you think you might eventually feel this way, consider a joint JD/PhD now).
You do not have to take my word for it. Anyone considering a PhD in academia with the aim of getting an academic job should do some research about the academic job market. To better understand the demand in the North American and some parts of the global academic job market, you can consult the American Political Science Association’s job reports for the past few years. To better understand the supply of candidates, you can consult the lists of graduate students who are on the job market in the top 10 or 20 political theory programs around the country. Most department websites list students who are on the market and indicate their subfields. Take note of how many of them are theorists and when they received their PhD. It is also worth looking at these candidates’ CVs. You’ll notice that many of them have top journal publications and some of them have published a book. The competition is impressive. (Of course, by the time you’re on the market, you may be quite impressive, too!)
If, after doing this research, you still want to pursue a PhD in political theory, that’s great! Working on foundational political questions within a subfield that connects to so many other disciplines (empirical political science, philosophy, history, law, literature, etc.) is fun and rewarding. But it’s best to do it with your eyes open.
Should I do a PhD in political theory at Stanford?
You should apply to Stanford if you’re interested in political theory in/and/as political science. In some political science doctoral programs, political theorists can choose to be relatively insulated from the empirical and methodological sides of the discipline. This is not the case at Stanford. We see political theorists, empirical political scientists, and methodologists as contributors to the shared endeavor of answering fundamental and important political questions. Every student (including political theorists) has to complete a two-course quantitative methods sequence, a political theory seminar, and gain exposure to empirical political science. In short, you will be trained as a political theorist and as a political scientist.
I see this as both intellectually and practically valuable. Intellectually, it prepares students to tackle important political questions, most of which have normative, empirical, and methodological dimensions. Practically, it trains students to be able to engage with the entire discipline, not just other political theorists. This can be an asset both when framing one’s work for general political science journals, when applying for jobs, and (with any luck) when working in a political science department.
The sort of training Stanford offers is not for everyone. That’s OK. Your job is to think about whether it’s right for you.
If you think this sounds like a good fit for you and your interests, you can find out more about the application requirements here. The part of your application over which you have the most control is your statement of purpose. Some applicants are tempted to write overly biographical statements explaining how they have loved Plato since they were in kindergarten. Please don’t do this!
Instead, write a statement that answers the following questions.
What question(s) are you interested in pursuing?
Why are these questions interesting and important? (Think about why someone who is interested in political science, though not necessarily political theory, should care about these questions).
What makes you a good person to address these questions? What skills and background knowledge do you bring to these questions?
Why is Stanford’s Department of Political Science the best place for you to pursue these questions? Perhaps there are faculty working in the relevant area. Perhaps Stanford has special intellectual resources or programs that might help you pursue these questions. Do some research and make your case.
How do I present at a conference?
Submitting a Paper to a Conference
You have got a paper that you would like to present at a conference. Where do you start?
Get advice. Speak to your faculty mentors and advisors, as well as your fellow students. Determine which conferences you should be applying to and when. For political theory graduate students, you might consider the conferences hosted by the Association for Political Theory, the Western Political Science Association, the Midwestern Political Science Association, and the American Political Science Association.
Pay attention. All of these conferences have different deadlines for proposal submission. Familiarize yourself with them in advance so that you are ready to apply when the time comes.
Several graduate programs (e.g. Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford) also host graduate student conferences. These conferences generally issue calls for papers and circulate these to other graduate programs and on social media. Keep an eye out!
Submit a proposal. There are two main types of proposals for conferences. First, there are paper proposals. For these, you are generally asked to submit a title and an abstract. Abstract lengths vary widely. Writing a compelling abstract is a skill. Give yourself time to do it properly and consider getting someone else to read it before submitting.
Second, there are panel proposals. For these, you invite other scholars working in your area to present on a panel with you. This involves a lot of organization—securing panelists, collecting their titles and abstracts, and submitting everything together through the conference submission system. The payoff for this extra work is that, if accepted, the panel is a great chance for you to engage with the work of other people in your area and build intellectual connections.
Presenting a Paper at a Conference
Your paper or panel has been accepted. Congratulations! How do you proceed from here?
Determine the format. Is it a presentation on a panel where each person gets 10-15 minutes? Is it a presentation where the entire session is devoted to your paper and you present for 30-45 minutes? The former is common in political science; the latter is common in philosophy.
Determine the norms. Do people tend to read the papers in advance? If not, then your presentation will be an advertisement for your paper (10-15 minutes) or a working through of the highlights and some of the details of your paper’s argument (30-45 minutes).
Determine the audience. Does the audience tend to be people from your subfield or from the discipline more broadly? If the audience tends to be people from your subfield, does it tend to be mostly specialists in the theme(s) of the panel or a mix of people?
The norm in political theory is that students present at graduate student political theory conferences, the Association of Political Theory Conference, regional conferences (e.g. the Western Political Science Association, the Midwestern Political Science Association), and the conference of the American Political Science Association. In all of those cases, you get 10-15 minutes and people in the audience will not have read your paper. Generally, the audience will be mostly political theorists, though not necessarily specialists in the theme(s) of the panel.
The presentation as advertisement. This means that your presentation will be an advertisement of sorts for your paper. You’re trying to get people, some of whom are not specialists, interested in reading it and in talking to you about your work. So, you want to do two things.
Give them a sense of the argument.
Highlight the most interesting bits of the argument.
For me, this often means adopting the “zoom in” strategy. Open with a hook, very broadly characterize the literature (no need to get into fine-grained disputes) and the paper’s puzzle/question, summarize the argument and its key moves, situate the bit of the argument you’re going to zoom in on, deliver an adapted version of that section of the argument, conclude by reminding the audience of the core argument and why they should care about it. Throughout, you should frame your paper to be accessible to people with knowledge of political theory but who may not know much about your topic.
Writing the presentation. If you adopt the “zoom in” strategy, you can use the paper’s introduction as a basis for the first part of the presentation (assuming your introduction has a hook, a general characterization of the literature, presentation of the problem, and a statement of the argument/roadmap). Then, you can use whatever section you’re going to zoom in on as the basis for the rest of the presentation.
You will have to cut. 10 minutes is about 5 double-spaced pages. 15 minutes is about 7.5 double-spaced pages. This means that you will often not be able to just deliver your introduction and a section of your paper as is. You will have to cut. When deciding what to cut, you might consider the following:
making sentences crisper (e.g. taking out clauses, hedges, etc.);
taking out engagements with the literature;
taking out examples (maybe keep the best and most illustrative one);
taking out quotations, especially if they are long (again, maybe just keep one especially good long quote).
This advice also works well for longer conference presentations.
Serving as a Discussant at a Conference
You have agreed to serve as a discussant for a paper or panel at a conference. How do you proceed?
Determine the format, norms, and audience. You need to know how much time you have and whether everyone will have read the paper.
At most political theory conferences, discussants have 10-15 minutes and no one in the audience will have read the paper. Generally, the audience will be mostly political theorists, though not necessarily specialists in the theme(s) of the panel.
The presentation as a conversation-starter. This means that you have a chance to play a role as a conversation-starter. If you can, connect the papers. How do they speak to one another? How do they speak to the theme of the panel? If they’re not connected, there’s no need to pretend that they are.
I like to give a brief summary of the argument of each of the papers (in a short presentation, I keep this to a sentence or two) before raising a few questions about each. If the papers are deeply connected, I try to point out questions that one paper might raise for another and/or to ask a question to everyone on the panel.
Types of question. This great advice is from my colleague, Emilee Chapman. You might consider three types of questions. (These are not exhaustive).
Clarifying or editorial questions: these questions invite the author to talk about the choices they made in making their argument and in writing and structuring the paper.
Internal criticisms: These questions take the overall project and at least some of the core premises of the paper as given and ask whether it delivers on the aims it sets for itself and/or holds together logically.
Invitations: These questions invite the author to say more about some issue or question raised in the paper.
Many of the best discussant comments offer a mix of these kinds of questions. All of these types of questions are underpinned by a spirit of generosity. This is the spirit with which the best discussants undertake your work. Being generous does not mean you cannot raise objections. It merely means that you ought to do so in a way that is constructive and with the goal of helping the author(s) of the paper(s) to make progress.
How do I publish as a graduate student?
A confession. I was not successful at publishing as a graduate student. Honestly, I had no idea what I should be doing. So, here is everything I wish I had known then.
Writing with an eye to publishing
Intellectual narcissism: get over it!
Motivate your argument. Do not assume that everyone thinks your work is as fascinating as you do. Ask yourself: “Why should political scientists (or political theorists) who work on other questions care about my argument?”
Participate in the scholarly conversation. Virtually any scholarly topic has been addressed by others, either directly or indirectly. Situate yourself within this scholarly conversation. (See “Rules of Thumb” 1-4 below).
You’re not alone.
Share your paper. Share your paper with others—graduate student colleagues, faculty mentors, conference and workshop audiences. Then, revise in response to feedback. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Models. Find examples of papers in your area. What works about them? How are they framed? How is the argument structured? How do they handle objections?
Scouting and targeting
Scouting. Determine which journals might be good “fits” for your paper. Where do the authors you’re engaging with publish? What advice do your faculty mentors have?
Targeting. Choose which journal among the good “fits” to target first. (Absent major constraints, target the best journal first). Then, revise your paper again in response to the journal’s formatting, style guidelines, and word limits.
Journal publishing: processes and outcomes
Journal review processes differ. The advice below is general and may not apply in every case.
Reject
Deep breath. Statistically, this is the most common outcome. You’re not alone. (See Arash Abizadeh’s CV of Journal Article Rejections. What a public service!).
Review. Review any feedback from the editor and/or reviewers (if it went out for review).
Consult. Reach out to faculty mentors, committee members, and trusted friends. See what they think about the feedback you received and the changes you ought to make.
Revise. Make changes in response to feedback. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Submit. Send the paper to another journal.
Reject and resubmit
Review. Review the reviewers’ reports and the editor’s letter.
Strategize. Determine whether the major changes required are ones that you want to make (especially knowing that the paper would be considered as a new submission and might go to different reviewers) or whether you think it is better to submit the paper to another journal. Faculty mentors and friends can help with this strategizing.
If you decide to revise, then…
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo or letter to the editor that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.
Revise and resubmit with major revisions
Review. Review the reviewers’ reports and the editor’s letter.
Strategize. Determine whether the major changes required are ones that you want to make or whether you think it is better to submit the paper to another journal. Faculty mentors and friends can help with this strategizing.
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.
Revise and resubmit with minor revisions
Review. Review the reviewers’ reports and the editor’s letter.
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.
Conditional acceptance
Celebrate! This is rare.
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.
Unconditional acceptance
Celebrate! This is extremely rare.
Revise. Make any changes that are important to you. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made.
Resubmit.
Rules of Thumb
Start with 10 articles. Getting on top of the secondary literature can seem daunting. Sometimes, it seems so daunting that one is reluctant to begin. A good strategy is to pick 10 articles in your area. Read them all. Pay attention to how they discuss the literature. Patterns will begin to emerge. The camps or categories will start to become clear. Once you have a way to group positions, the secondary literature becomes far less daunting.
Practice interpretive charity. Good scholarly work is hard. It is reasonable to assume that the people who produce work and get it published are not dumb. So, if you are dealing with a position in the literature that you think is misguided, the best question to ask is: “Why would a smart person come to this conclusion?” Starting with this question will encourage you to read other arguments charitably. It will also help you to more accurately identify and diagnose where their argument goes wrong. Pointing out the flaws in a position can be useful. Diagnosing the reasons for those missteps can be a massive public service.
Avoid unnecessary fights. Academic writing often involves taking sides. Sometimes, arguments that you disagree with are so irritating that you may be tempted to provide an exhaustive discussion of their failings. This is not generally a good strategy. Only pick the fights that are necessary for your argument to go through. Intellectually, this keeps your paper focused. Strategically, it gives potential reviewers (who might be defenders of the very positions you’re criticizing) fewer grounds for rejecting the paper.
Use the literature to set a high standard for your argument. Use your review of the existing literature to set the standard that your argument is going to have to meet. Here’s an abstract example. “There are two broad positions on this question. Position A explains x, but does not explain y. Position B explains x and y, but does not explain z.” This means that your argument should have all the advantages of the existing positions (i.e., it should explain x and y), but also improve on them (i.e., it should also explain z).
Read your paper strategically. Identify the core of your argument—the moves that are essential to getting the reader to your conclusion. These are generally your main premises. What is left is peripheral. These may be examples, elaborations, or extensions. As a general rule, you should defend the core of your argument, but be willing to concede at the periphery. Failure to defend the core conveys the impression that you are not committed to your argument. Failure to concede at the periphery conveys the impression that you are intellectually inflexible.
Resources
Abizadeh, Arash. 2022. CV of Journal Article Rejections. Available: https://abizadeh.wixsite.com/arash/post-1/cv-of-journal-article-rejections
Belcher, Wendy Laura. 2019. Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks, 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Davis, Murray S. 1971. “That’s Interesting! Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology.” Philosophy of Social Sciences 1, no. 4: 309-344.
How do I prepare for the political theory job market?
Here is my advice for preparing for and embarking on the political theory job market.
The long game. Preparing for the job market starts when you begin graduate school. This is true in at least three ways. First, most competitive job candidates have academic journal publications when they go on the market. This means that any promising seminar paper, conference paper, or article-length dissertation chapter that you write is something you should consider polishing and submitting to a journal. Talk to your academic mentors and senior graduate students about this early and often. Find models of papers in your area that have been placed in top journals. What works about them? What could be better? How can you put these insights to work in your own papers?
Second, some departments run workshops or talk series where academics from other institutions are invited to present. Go to these. See how these scholars frame and present their research, take note of the sorts of questions that are being debated in various areas in political science, ask questions, watch how the presenter responds to questions in the Q&A. And if you get a chance to meet with the presenter and you’re interested in their work, take advantage of this opportunity. Being involved in the intellectual life of your department and the political theory field is one of the best things you can do to prepare for the academic job market.
Third, in North American PhD programs, graduate students will likely have the chance to attend several job talks during their time in the program. In some cases, graduate students also get the chance to meet with the job candidate. Take advantage of these opportunities as well. You can learn a lot about what makes for an interesting job candidate, an effective job talk, and a good campus visit by observing the process and by discussing your thoughts with other graduate students and faculty. When in doubt, ask!
Start early. In North America, most academic jobs advertisements get posted in the summer. You can find those postings on APSA’s eJobs site. Some jobs have deadlines in mid- to late-August and many others in September. Meet with your dissertation committee in the spring before you intend to go on the market and come up with deadlines for providing them with drafts of your job packet materials and final versions of those materials to inform their letters of reference. Be sure that you discuss how much lead time your committee members will need in order to write their letters.
Apply widely. The political theory market is tight. This means that you should apply as widely as possible. At the very least, this means applying for tenure-track jobs and postdoctoral fellowships. It may also mean applying for non-tenure track positions. It means applying for jobs in places you might never have imagined living. When in doubt, apply. If you’re fortunate enough to get a job talk in one of those places, go with an open mind. Good and happy lives are possible between the coasts and in other countries.
Keep your committee members and letter writers in the loop. Communicate early and often with your committee members and letter writers about which jobs you’re applying for, when the application deadlines are, and how letter writers should submit their letters. Keeping a spreadsheet is a good way to manage this information.
Draft, revise, revise again. Treat your application materials (CV, cover letter, research statement, writing sample, teaching statement, diversity statement) like you would an academic paper. That is, write drafts, get people to read them, and revise accordingly. Then, do it all over again. When you’re drafting your materials, it’s helpful to have some models in front of you. Reach out to a political theorist you know who has been successful on the market. Ask them to share their materials. (Some programs also keep archives of these materials from former students).
Once you have drafts of your materials, seek out at least one non-political theorist to read them and give you feedback. Think about it. Most political science departments are primarily composed of empirical political scientists. This means that job search committees will tend to include non-theorists (in some cases, there may not be a single theorist on the committee). Your materials have to be clear and compelling to empirical political scientists.
The job talk. The same advice that applies to your job packet materials applies to your job talk. Draft it. Practice it on your own…repeatedly. Practice it in front of an audience (your department, your fellow graduate students, your committee members)…repeatedly. Make sure that you practice the talk at least once for an audience that includes non-theorists. This is crucial. Your audience at most departments will primarily be non-theorists. The talk has to be clear and compelling to them. Have a friend take notes during the practice Q&As. Go back through those questions and prepare polished answers to them. Run those answers by your committee. The more feedback you get and the more you practice, the better your talk will be.
Ideally, you should be able to put your job talk on “autopilot,” if need be. If there are distractions or you feel unwell, you will be able to continue to talk regardless. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Finally, the Q&A is often the most challenging part of a job talk. Here again, practice helps (see above). The best piece of advice I got was from an International Relations scholar: “Determine in advance what the core and periphery of your argument are. When faced with good objections, be willing to make concessions at the periphery. Failure to do this makes you seem inflexible and difficult. But defend the core of your argument to the very end. Failure to do this makes you seem uncommitted.”