Theda Skocpol (; born May 4, 1947) is an American sociologist and political scientist known for her work in historical sociology, comparative politics, American political development, and social policy. She is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. Her scholarship has examined the role of states and institutions in revolutions, welfare-state formation, civic associations, health-care politics, and contemporary American political polarization.
Skocpol's first book, States and Social Revolutions (1979), compared the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions and it became one of the most influential works in comparative-historical sociology and the study of revolution. Her later books include Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (1992), a study of the origins of American social policy, and Diminished Democracy (2003), an account of changes in American civic life.
Skocpol served as president of the Social Science History Association in 1996 and of the American Political Science Association in 2002–2003. She received the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science in 2007, the James Madison Award from the American Political Science Association in 2023, and Khaldun Award from the American Sociological Association Comparative-Historical Sociology Section in 2024. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. She also is an international fellow of the British Academy. She grew up in Michigan and is a 1969 graduate Michigan State University, with a bachelor's degree.
Skocpol entered graduate study at Harvard University, where she earned a master's degree in 1972 and a doctorate in 1975. The department had no tenured women at the time, and Skocpol filed an internal grievance alleging sex discrimination. A review committee later found that sex discrimination had influenced the decision, and Harvard president Derek Bok granted her tenure several years later.
Between 1981 and 1986, Skocpol taught at the University of Chicago. Harvard Magazine described the network as an effort to integrate scholarship into public policy and public debate.
Historian Julian Zelizer of Princeton University wrote that few scholars have been so influential as Skocpol has been upon the historians at Harvard University and that he considers her a pioneer in the scholarly field examining American political development.
Scholarship
Comparative-historical sociology and revolutions
Skocpol's early work helped define comparative-historical sociology and state-centered analysis. States and Social Revolutions compared the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution, arguing that social revolutions cannot be explained solely by class struggle, ideology, or revolutionary organization. Instead, Skocpol emphasized the interaction of international pressures, state breakdown, agrarian class relations, and peasant mobilization.
Skocpol's methodological work also contributed to renewed interest in the state in social science. She co-edited Bringing the State Back In (1985), a collection that became associated with institutional and state-centered approaches to politics and social change.
Social policy and American political development
Skocpol turned increasingly to American social policy and political development in the late twentieth century. Her book Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (1992) examined the development of social provision in the United States from the Civil War through the early twentieth century. The book argued that the United States developed a distinctive form of early social policy centered on Civil War pensions and maternalist reform rather than on the labor-centered welfare arrangements found in many European countries. In a twenty-fifth-anniversary assessment, historian Marisa Chappell described the book as a landmark work in the history of the American welfare state, while also noting subsequent critiques from gender historians and others concerning race, gender, and the interpretation of maternalist reform.
Skocpol also wrote on American health-care politics. With Lawrence R. Jacobs she published Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, which examined the politics of American health reform during and after the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Civic associations and democracy
A major strand of Skocpol's later work concerns voluntary associations and civic life in the United States. In Diminished Democracy (2003), she argued that American civic life had shifted from broad, membership-based federations toward professionally managed advocacy groups and donor-supported organizations.
Contemporary American politics
Skocpol has also studied contemporary American political movements and party polarization. With Vanessa Williamson she wrote The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (2012), based on interviews, fieldwork, and organizational research on the Tea Party movement. In The New Yorker, editor Ryan Lizza listed the book among the best political books of 2012 and described it as a deep study of the movement.
In 2023, Skocpol and Lainey Newman published Rust Belt Union Blues, a study of the decline of local unions and the movement of working-class voters away from the Democratic Party in western Pennsylvania.
Harvard describes Skocpol's current work as focusing on organizational bases of popular and elite politics, including the Tea Party, anti-Trump resistance, polarization, and the radicalization of the Republican Party.