Rudra Sil
Rudra Sil is Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Huntsman Program in International Studies & Business. He joined the department in 1996, held the Janice & Julian Bers Chair in the Social Sciences from 2000 to 2003, and received awards for distinguished teaching in 2001 and 2011. His teaching and research interests encompass Russian and post-communist studies, Asian studies, comparative labor politics, theories of development and institutional change, qualitative comparative methods, and the philosophy of the social sciences. He is author of Managing “Modernity”: Work, Community, and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia (Univeristy of Michigan Press, 2002) and coauthor, with Peter Katzenstein, of Beyond Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010). His articles have appeared in such journals as Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Studies in Comparative International Development, Europe-Asia Studies, and Post-Soviet Affairs. He is also author of more than a dozen book chapters and has coedited several anthologies, including The Politics of Labor in a Global Age (Oxford University Press, 2001); World Order After Leninism (University of Washington Press, 2006) and Reconfiguring Institutions Across Time and Space (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007). Professor Sil is currently working on a new book - tentatively titled Pathways of the Postcommunist Proletariat - that analyzes the evolution of labor politics in Russia, with comparisons to Poland, the Czech Republic, China and Vietnam.
Research Interests:
- Comparative politics: labor politics, institutional analysis, development
- Area specialties: Russian/post-communist studies, Asian studies
- International relations: general theory, international organizations
- Qualitative Methods: Comparative-historical analysis, philosophy of social science
Selected Publications:
- BOOK -- Managing "Modernity": Work Community and Authority in
Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia.
University of Michigan Press, 2002.
Order this book from the publisher. - BOOK -- Beyond
Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics. Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010. Coauthored with Peter
J. Katzenstein.
Order this book from the publisher. - ARTICLE -- "When Multi-Method Research Subverts Methodological Pluralism - Or, Why We Still Need Single-Method Research" (with Amel Ahmed), Perspectives on Politics 10, 4 (December 2012): 935-953.
- ARTICLE -- "Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions" (with Peter J. Katzenstein), Perspectives on Politics 8, 2 (June 2010): 411-431.
- ARTICLE -- "Stretching Postcommunism: Diversity, Context and Comparative Historical Analysis" (with Cheng Chen), Post-Soviet Affairs 23, 4 (2007): 275-301.
- ARTICLE -- "Communist Legacies, Postcommunist Transformations, and the Fate of Organized Labor in Russia and China" (with Calvin Chen). Studies in Comparative International Development, 41, 2 (Summer 2006): 62-87.
- ARTICLE -- "State Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post-Communist Russia" (with Cheng Chen), Europe-Asia Studies 56, 3 (May 2004).
- ARTICLE -- "The Foundations of Eclecticism: The Epistemological Status of Agency, Culture, and Structure in Social Theory," Journal of Theoretical Politics (July 2000).
- EDITED VOLUME -- The Politics of Labor in a Global Age. Oxford University Press, 2001. Co-edited with Christopher Candland. Order this book from the publisher.
- EDITED VOLUME -- Reconfiguring Institutions Across Time and Space: Syncretic Responses to Challenges of Political and Economic Transformation. Palgrave-Macmillan (Series in the Evolution of Political Institutions), 2007. Coedited with Dennis Galvan. Order this book from the publisher.
Courses Taught:
- PSCI 610: Comparative Political Analysis (graduate field seminar)
- PSCI 217/517: Russian Politics (lecture)
- PSCI 116: Political Change in the "Third World" (lecture)
- PSCI 598/398: The Idea of Development (Seminar)
