<p>hi all
seems like this board has quite a few folks on it who know the world of poli sci. i'm interested in doing a PhD in politics, with a particular interest in international security and great power politics, with a lot of focus on how states securitize and what the consequences of these policies are on the international scale. i'm particularly interested in great powers, especially US grand strategy. i'm trying to figure out which programs are the best in this area. based on my research, i've come up w/ columbia, chicago, MIT (these first 3 seem to have the most scholars on their faculty looking at security), and princeton, with berkeley, ucla, g-town, and usc being decent places, though not quite as good as the first four for intl' security. was hoping people on here might recommend other programs to check out.</p>
<p>The choices you have already are very good, but I'm surprised that you have not mentioned the Fletcher School of International Affairs at Tufts.</p>
<p>The</a> Fletcher School - PhD</p>
<p>You would have to get a master's degree first, but you could do that at the Fletcher School - get a masters in their world-famous masters program and apply for the PhD as you are finishing up.</p>
<p>I'm not familiar with this field, but I can tell you what I know about Cornell, since I am a student here. They have the Peace Studies program which offers a minor field of concentration and a regular speaker series. I can think of Peter Katzenstein, who is one of the founders of international constructivism, an editor of forthcoming *Rethinking Japanese Security<a href="Routledge,%202008">/I</a> besides authoring and editing tens of other books on international politics and political economy, and the president-elect of APSA in 2007-8. Matthew Evangelista specializes in the Cold War and Eastern Europe, and Jonathan Kirshner is also an international political economist who has recently written a manuscript on the economic aspect of war, titled *Appeasing Bankers: Financial Caution on the road to War<a href="Princeton,%202007">/I</a>. Christopher Way has done work on democratic peace, Fred Logevall in History department is an authority on Vietnam War and US foreign policy, and Barry Strauss, a military historian, does comparative work on ancient Greece and modern international politics. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>I thought Fletcher is an excellent program, too, except that it is practice-oriented than academic.</p>
<p>Don't overlook Harvard. Right now Rosen and Johnston work on security stuff - and both work very closely and personally with students - but they regularly hire VERY good junior people who will be around for 5-7 years like Kydd (who just left)</p>
<p>jessiehl,</p>
<p>Fletcher's MA program is good, but I don't really think their PhD is up there in terms of placement.</p>
<p>UCSD has some good security people, but Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Stanford come to my mind.</p>