Karen Beckwith
Flora Stone Mather Professor, Department of Political Science
Contact
karen.beckwith@case.edu
216.368.4129
Mather House 223
MW 2:30-3:30pm
Other Information
Education:
PhD, Syracuse University 1982
MA, Syracuse University 1977
BA, University of Kentucky 1972
Research: comparative political parties, party leadership, cabinet formation, political movements, political loss, and the comparative politics of gender; with a focus on the United States and West Europe
About
karen.beckwith@case.edu
Mather House 223
Phone (216) 368-4129
For appointments and office hours, sign up here.
For students interested in working with Professor Beckwith in POSC396 Senior Capstone Project, see here for further information.
For students requesting a letter of recommendation from Professor Beckwith, see here for further information.
Karen Beckwith is the Flora Stone Mather Professor in the Department of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University. Teaching primarily in the areas of political parties, political movements, and women, gender, and politics, she has special regional interests in the United States and West Europe.
Professor Beckwith’s current research projects examine 1) how social movements respond to loss; 2) how party leadership contests are gendered in parliamentary democracies; and 3) the impact of party system change on women’s political representation. Her research has been funded by grants from the American Political Science Association, the Council for European Studies, the European Consortium for Political Research, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation.
Professor Beckwith founded, with Lisa Baldez (Dartmouth College) and Christina Wolbrecht (University of Notre Dame), Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics, a series of books published by Cambridge University Press. She was also the founding editor, with Lisa Baldez (Dartmouth College), of Politics & Gender, the journal of the Women, Gender, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Her published work includes numerous scholarly articles and four books: Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender (Oxford University Press, 2019), Political Women and American Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2008), Women’s Movements Facing the Reconfigured State (Cambridge, 2003), and American Women and Political Participation (Greenwood Press, 1986).
Professor Beckwith was honored in 2024 with CWRU’s Faculty Distinguished Research Award. She was the Fulbright-Scotland Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh in 2014. In 2013, Professor Beckwith was honored by the Midwest Women’s Caucus for Political Science as the Outstanding Professional Scholar.
Guidelines for Critical Reading in Political Science.
Please click here to see Sample Ballots.