Theda Skocpol

In her text, Skocpol "offers a framework of reference for analyzing social-revolutionary transformations in modern world history" and discusses and compares the causes of the French Revolution of 1787–1800, the Russian Revolution of 1917–1921, and the Chinese Revolution of 1911–1949.

Out of over one hundred past presidents, since 1903, only about ten women have held that office.

Theda Skocpol (née Barron; May 4, 1947) is an American sociologist and political scientist, who is currently the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University.

She is best known as an advocate of the historical-institutional and comparative approaches, as well as her "state autonomy theory".

She has written widely for both popular and academic audiences.

She has been President of the American Political Science Association and the Social Science History Association.

In historical sociology, Skocpol's works and opinions have been associated with the structuralist school.

As an example, she argues that social revolutions can best be explained given their relation with specific structures of agricultural societies and their respective states.

Such an approach differs greatly from more "behaviorist" ones, which tend to emphasize the role of "revolutionary populations", "revolutionary psychology", and/or "revolutionary consciousness", as determinant factors of revolutionary processes.

Theda Skocpol was born in Detroit, Michigan on May 4, 1947.

Both of her parents, Jennie Mae Becker Barron and Allan Barron, were teachers.

Her mother wanted her to study home economics at a small liberal arts college, while her father was concerned about the cost of college education.

She earned her BA in sociology at Michigan State University in 1969.

While she attended Michigan State, she participated in the antiwar movement in response to the Vietnam War.

Through the Methodist student association, she went to Rust College, a historically black college in Holly Springs, Mississippi, to teach English and math to incoming freshman.

Many of the students were from sharecropper families, and were first-generation college students.

She called her time in Mississippi observing racism and segregation "life-changing".

She then went on to earn both her MA (1972) and PhD at Harvard University (1975).

While attending Harvard, Skocpol studied with Barrington Moore Jr.. Her first published article, in 1973, was a critique of Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.

From 1975 to 1981, Skocpol served as an assistant and associate professor of sociology, at Harvard.

Her 1979 book States and Social Revolutions was influential in research on revolutions.

During this time, Skocpol published her first of many books, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Social Revolutions in Russia, France and China (1979).

Some of her subsequent work focused on methodology and theory, including the co-edited volume Bringing the State Back In, which heralded a new focus by social scientists on the state as an agent of social and political change.

According to her Curriculum Vitae Skocpol has been distinguished by over twenty awards and honors, some of which are: C. Wright Mills Award of The Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1979; elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2006; and she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2008.

Skocpol's most famous book, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Social Revolutions in Russia, France and China (1979), discusses how most theories account only for direct action in bringing about revolutions.

Social Revolutions are fast-paced foundational transformations of society's state and class structures.

She includes the structure involved in creating a revolutionary situation that can lead to a social revolution - one that changes civic institutions and government once the administration and military branches collapse.

In the early 1980s, Skocpol publicly alleged that Harvard University had denied her tenure (1980) because she was a woman.

In 1981, Skocpol moved on to work at the University of Chicago.

For the next five years, Skocpol would serve as an Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Science, and of Social Science, Professor of Sociology and Political Science, and Director for the Center for the Study of Industrial Societies.

This charge was found to be justified by an internal review committee in 1981.

In 1984, Harvard University offered Skocpol a tenured position (its first ever for a female sociologist), which she accepted.

From 1986 to the present, Skocpol has held various positions at Harvard University including: Professor of Sociology; Director for the Center for American Political Studies; Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and presently is the Professor of Government and of Sociology, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology.

Throughout her career, Skocpol has held many positions at various academic, and professional organizations, some of which include: president of Politics and History Section, chairperson, and later Council member of the American Political Science Association (1991–1996).

Her book Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (1992) was awarded the 1993 Woodrow Wilson Award for best book in political science by the American Political Science Association.

She is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Skocpol is also Founder and Co-Editor, Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, Comparative, and International Perspectives (1993 – present); and Senior Advisor in the Social Sciences, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2006–2008).

In 2007, she was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, one of the world's most prestigious prizes in political science for her "visionary analysis of the significance of the state for revolutions, welfare, and political trust, pursued with theoretical depth and empirical evidence."

In 2015, she was named an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University (term: 2015–2021).

In October 2019 Skocpol was awarded with an honorary doctorate from Radboud University Nijmegen.