Dr Ursula Hackett appointed as inaugural Churchill Associate Professor in US Politics
Dr Ursula Hackett appointed as inaugural Churchill Associate Professor in US Politics
The RAI is thrilled to announce that Dr Ursula Hackett will join us in September as our inaugural Churchill Associate Professor in US Politics. The post has been endowed thanks to the remarkable generosity and vision of an anonymous donor and will enable the RAI to launch the University of Oxford’s first MSc in American Politics.
This appointment marks a return to the RAI for Dr Hackett, who began her academic career as a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute. Most recently, she was Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research in American Political Development examines how law, institutions, and public policy shape representation and political inequality in the United States.
Dr Hackett is the author of America’s Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and has twice held British Academy research fellowships. Her work has been recognised with several major prizes, including the APSA Education Politics Best Book Award, the Richard E. Neustadt Award, and the Theodore J. Lowi Prize. She is also the author of the student writing guide Brilliant Essays, and works closely with policymakers, educators, and civil society organisations to bring scholarship on American politics to wider audiences. She has recently completed the manuscript for her second monograph, Protecting the District: How Redistricting Entrenches Power, which examines how minimal-change redistricting has entrenched historic inequalities, perpetuated partisan and racial bias, and reduced democratic participation throughout US history.
Dr Hackett said:
“I am delighted and honoured to be joining the Rothermere American Institute to take up the Churchill Chair. As a former RAI Junior Research Fellow, I have long valued its distinctive intellectual community and its commitment to rigorous, world-leading research on American politics. It is a privilege to return, and to contribute more fully to its warm, collegial research culture, public programming, and teaching. In particular, I am looking forward to leading the development of the new MSc in US Politics, building on the RAI’s exceptional strengths in American Political Development.”
The RAI’s Director, Professor Adam Smith, said:
“Ursula Hackett is a scholar who changes how you see American politics. Her book on voucher politics shows how American elites deliver public money through vouchers and tax breaks precisely so that the hand of the state stays hidden — a quietly radical account of how power actually works in the United States. That blend of rigorous research, close institutional detail, and big argument is exactly what our new MSc needs. Ursula is, quite simply, the best possible person for this exciting new role. She combines remarkable intellectual power with infectious enthusiasm and enormous energy. With Ursula as our Churchill Chair, I am confident that the RAI will become the global centre for the historically informed study of the politics of the United States and its place in the world. I can’t wait to welcome her here and start working with her.”
