Events

Advancing Comparative Area Studies: Analytical Heterogeneity and Organizational Challenges

Rudra Sil is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania where he is also SAS Director of the dual-degree Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. He received his Ph.D. from Berkeley before joining the Penn faculty in 1996. His scholarly interests encompass Russian/post-communist studies, Asian studies, comparative labor politics, international development, qualitative methodology, and the philosophy of social science. Sil has previously authored, coauthored, or coedited eight books. These include two monographs – Managing ‘Modernity’: Work, Community, and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia (2002) and Beyond Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics (2010), coauthored with Peter Katzenstein and honored as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title – as well as six co-edited books, including The Politics of Labor in a Global Age (2001), World Order After Leninism (2006) and, most recently, Advancing Comparative Area Studies: Analytical Heterogeneity and Organizational Challenges (2025). He is a frequent participant in discussions and symposia organized by the Comparative Politics and the Qualitative & Multi-Methods Research sections. His refereed articles have appeared in such journals as Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Post-Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia Studies, and Studies in Comparative International Development. The paper in Comparative Political Studies, coauthored with his former doctoral student Allison Evans, received the Dorothy Day Award for Outstanding Labor Scholarship. Sil is currently working on a monograph titled The Fate of a Former Superpower: Russia’s Troubled Search for Its Place in a Post-Cold War World. He is also recipient of multiple teaching awards including, most recently, the Ira H. Abrams Memorial Prize for Distinguished Teaching in the School of Arts and Sciences.