Life Update: Starting a PhD

Many of you reading this may already know, but I’m starting a PhD in Political Science at Yale this fall. I’ll finish (hopefully) in 5-6 years. I’m writing this post both so that I can look back and see what I thought I wanted to study later on and as an explanation for why I want to start a PhD. For those only interested in the why, and not the minutiae of political science research agendas, you can skip the first two paragraphs.

At Yale, I plan to specialize in comparative politics with a second sub-field likely in political theory. Broadly, I am interested in issues of violence, governance, and state-building. More specifically, I’m interested in non-state governance, wartime politics, and civilian agency in conflict. I’m hoping that studying state-building and non-state governance together can create insight both on how historical cases of the phenomenon are interpreted and use those lessons to interpret contemporary cases. Civilians have largely been left out of studies of intrastate violence, and while there are some notable recent exceptions, I think there is still work to be done on their role in influencing broader conflict systems. I am also still interested to a degree in the study of mass atrocities, but hope to more rigorously connect that research agenda to related ones, such as civil wars. I hope that my work on these issues relates back to more fundamental questions of (how violence interacts with) power, organization, and identity/ideology. Additionally, I’m somewhat interested in leftist strategy and the role of intellectuals/ideas in shaping social change, but that will probably remain a side interest.

In terms of regional specialization, I have always been more attached to themes than a region, but if I had to choose one it would be sub-Saharan Africa (obviously some countries more than others). I’m starting to learn French in order to make research there more feasible. Methodologically, I see myself more as a social scientist interested in the questions studied by political scientist rather than solely a political scientist, so I hope to draw inspiration from a range of disciplines. I plan on primarily using qualitative methods such as ethnography and historical research in my own work, but still need to learn more about others.

Especially for those reading this that may not be interested in devoting at least five years of their lives to obtaining a doctorate, the major question is probably “why?”. I’ve been interested in political issues for as long as I can remember, and once I got to Swarthmore, I realized that there were broadly three avenues through which I could pursue my interests: activism, policy, and academia. I’m choosing the third because, to quote Vaclev Havel, I want to “live in truth.” In his essay “The Power of the Powerless”, Havel reflects on life after communism, arguing its primary power comes not through brute force, but through fear, censorship, and labyrinthine institutions that gradually ensure acquiescence. However, “living in truth” by refusing to follow the system’s diktats, upends the status quo and empowers the previously-dominated.

Fortunately, I have never lived in such a society, but I see Havel’s point as having broader implications about how people come to understand what social arrangements are just, and how those ends can be achieved. Outside of academia, I have found the institutional and social pressures to think in certain ways, some of which seem unjust, baffling, depressing, and very, very hard to deal with. I still strongly believe that plenty of people do amazing and necessary work in the activism and policy worlds, but professionally, I am not cut out for such a life. Academia is no panacea to these problems, but the time granted for intellectual inquiry and the norms of research and discussion offer greater possibilities to live in truth. Furthermore, if my time at Swarthmore taught me one thing, it is that positive social change is very difficult to achieve, and good intentions often result in negative outcomes. Well-crafted, well-communicated research can help ameliorate this problem. This belief, coupled with the realization that I have long admired and aspired to intellectualism more than other personal traits, has led me to Yale, and hopefully beyond.

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Why the Greens Aren’t the Answer

There’s been a lot of conversation recently around the merits of voting for a third party candidate, and while I firmly believe that voting for Hillary Clinton is necessary to stop the unprecedented disaster that would a Trump presidency, I do not believe that even in the long-term, the Green Party represents a viable opportunity for the Left.

I voted for Jill Stein in 2012, but I was voting in Michigan, where Romney had a close to 0% chance of winning. I will again not be voting in a swing-state, but I will be voting for Hillary Clinton. In 2012, I believed that absent the threat that not voting for a Democrat could elect a Republican, it was important to strengthen the Green Party so that over time it could provide a left counterweight to the moderate Democrats. However, I now find it highly improbable the Green Party will ever be that force for three main reasons.

First, the current electoral rules make it very hard for a third party to ever become prominent. The Democrats and GOP have very little incentive to change them, even if they become unpopular, because right now those two are the only game in town.

Second, the Green Party isn’t even the most likely third party to become prominent. It’s probably not even the second or third. Right now, either branch of the Republican party (classic, somewhat elite conservatives on one side, Trumpistas on the other), Libertarians, and maybe some mix of those three would probably have more appeal than the Greens. The biggest problem with imagining the Greens as a vanguard of the Left is that it is impossibly optimistic to believe that there’s a large number who actually support leftist ideals but aren’t speaking up due to a lack of current options. This hypothesis has been posited for decades, and it’s always been wrong. Even despite the relative strength of leftist social movements right now, there’s little support for the Green Party.

Third, from the research on political party affiliation (as I understand it; I’m not an Americanist), Americans identify with parties based mostly on identity rather than policies. As in people vote for Democrats because they’ve always felt like Democrats. Because the rational voter, who votes on a consistent set of principles is mostly a myth, it’s impossible to convince voters to abandon the Democratic Party for a little-known third party that claims to have better policies. Therefore, I think a leftist candidate in the Democratic primaries, backed up by strong social movement support that wins the presidential election, is the upper bound of leftist potential in my lifetime. The revolution isn’t coming.

I am deeply concerned about Hillary’s policies, particularly her foreign policy, but voting for her is necessary to prevent Trump from winning. The decision is even clearer when it becomes obvious the Green Party cannot and will not become a major force to the Democrats’ left.