Rate My Professor Craig Parsons

Craig Parsons serves as Professor and Program Head in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oregon. He earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999, an M.A. in Political Science from Berkeley in 1994, a Certificat d’études politiques from Sciences Po, Paris in 1993 with mention bien, and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University summa cum laude in 1992. His career trajectory includes Assistant Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School from 2000 to 2004, followed by appointments at the University of Oregon as Assistant Professor from 2004 to 2006, Associate Professor from 2006 to 2011, and Professor since 2011. Since 2020, he has held the position of Senior Researcher at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo. Parsons has also served as invited guest professor at Sciences Po Bordeaux, Lyon, Reims, University of Osnabrück, and Sciences Po Paris.

His scholarly work centers on comparative politics and European politics, investigating the ideas and institutions that constructed modern Europe, comparisons between the European Union and American federalism, the effects of EU authority on political parties and democratic representation, and issues in the philosophy of science and qualitative methodology. Current research examines how the EU developed a single market removing internal barriers that persist in the United States, supported by a $1.4 million grant from the Norwegian Research Council. Key publications include A Certain Idea of Europe (Cornell University Press, 2003; winner of the International Studies Association’s Chadwick Alger Prize for best book on international organization), How to Map Arguments in Political Science (Oxford University Press, 2007; honorable mention for the APSA Giovanni Sartori Prize in Qualitative Methods), and Introduction to Political Science: How to Think for Yourself about Politics (Pearson, 2nd edition 2020). He co-edited Constructing the International Economy (Cornell University Press, 2010), Immigration and the Transformation of Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and With US and Against US? European Trends in American Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2005). Influential articles feature “Showing Ideas as Causes: The Origins of the European Union” (International Organization, 2002) and “Ideas and Power: Four Intersections and How to Show Them” (Journal of European Public Policy, 2016). Additional honors comprise a Fulbright Research Fellowship at the Émile Durkheim Institute, University of Bordeaux (2011-2012), Bowerman Fund Faculty Award for Teaching, Research and Leadership (2012), and National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1993-1996). Parsons edited the EUSA Review from 2007 to 2009 and has contributed to APSA committees, including the Committee on Departmental Services.