Greetings from the great country of Australia, where crime is low, standards of living are high, and our foreign policy is relatively rational and sane. Having completed a Bachelor of Arts (with Honours), Bachelor of Laws, and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, I'm currently enrolled in a Master of Arts (Political Science) and am sizing up PhD programs for when I graduate from my current course.
Since all my degrees have been in Australia, I want to switch things up and get some exposure in the US. I've been told that it's easier to get into and obtain funding from state universities, so I've made the following list of schools:
Florida State University George Mason University Rutgers - New Brunswick University of California - Los Angeles
University of Massachusetts Boston
However, I also want to try for the University of Pennsylvania, just for kicks, because it's a top-ranked university.
Can anyone here tell me if there are any sympathetic folks at these or other universities? It can be from any faculty - because I'm pretty sure at PhD level they would allow your dissertation committee to be interdisciplinary. I've learned the hard way that it's not what you know, but who you know, so I want to begin cultivating relationships with potential supervisors well in advance. P.S. GMU is loaded with Austrians, I know, but what about the others?
Definately go for George Mason U. That's where all the Austrians/laissez faire people are at. I'm not sure about the other schools though.
Florida State University...I had a Professor of Philosophy from there last semester and he joked that FSU is not as great as it sounds ("There were never any bright Philosophy students that went through FSU.)"
George Mason is the most expensive University in the US. it does have Austrian degrees (not the LvMI sort of Austrianism though) and it and Harvard have libertarian professors of economics. i don't know if that is the case in the Political Science Dept. however.
you're more likely to encounter left-libertarians in the intellectual realms in the US.
Why not try University of Chicago? there are probably right-oriented Political Science shenanigans going on there.
Johns Hopkins?
Carnegie Mellon University?
Thanks! Getting into a top-ranked university is a lot to do with whether you have support from inside the faculty... and much less to do with GRE scores, publications etc (although these obviously help). So I think University of Chicago could potentially be a good choice. I'll have a look and see if there are any free-market academics I could contact.
There are some more universities with sympathetic people - check also the New York University for instance.
Mises Wiki | Economic Resources and Books (search engine)
Who's at the University of Chicago and Harvard that would be sympathetic? All I know of at Harvard is Jeff Miron, but he's not Austrian inclined (I know this from personal experience, as I asked him to be a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Peace, Prosperity and Freedom but he respectfully declined)
Sukrit:Who's at the University of Chicago and Harvard that would be sympathetic? All I know of at Harvard is Jeff Miron, but he's not Austrian inclined (I know this from personal experience, as I asked him to be a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Peace, Prosperity and Freedom but he respectfully declined)
Some schools are 'merely' free-market oriented, so they may not make the cut for you, but judge for yourself. See this for some useful comments.