Rudra Sil is Professor of Political Science and the 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 primary field is comparative politics, with some of his work also touching on international relations theory. His scholarly interests encompass Russian/post-communist studies, Asian studies, comparative labor politics, international development, qualitative methodology, and the philosophy of social science. Sil is author, co-author or co-editor of seven books. These include 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. Sil’s coedited volumes include The Politics of Labor in a Global Age (2001), World Order After Leninism (2007), and Comparative Area Studies: Methodological Rationales and Cross-Regional Applications (2018). His articles that 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. A 2020 article published in Comparative Political Studies – coauthored with former Penn Ph.D. student, Dr. Allison Evans – received the Dorothy Day Award for Outstanding Labor Scholarship. Sil has just completed a second volume on Advances in Comparative Area Studies (to be published by Oxford University Press in 2025) and is currently working on a new monograph, The Fate of a Former Superpower: Russia’s Troubled Search for Relevance and Recognition in a Post-Cold War World (under advance contract, Cambridge University Press). Sil is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the 2022 Ira H. Abrams Memorial Prize for Distinguished Teaching in the School of Arts and Sciences.
- Comparative politics - development, labor politics, social movements, institutions & organizations
- Area expertise: Russian/post-communist studies, Asian studies
- International relations: general theory, US-Russia relations
- Qualitative methodology: comparative-historical analysis, interdisciplinarity, philosophy of social science
- Comparative Politics of Developing Areas (undergraduate lecture)
- Russian Politics in Comparative Perspective (undergraduate & graduate)
- Globalization, Development & the BRICS (freshman seminar)
- Evolving Perspectives in Comparative Politics (graduate seminar)
Books (selected)
- Comparative Area Studies: Methodological Rationales and Cross-Regional Applications (Oxford University Press, 2018), co-edited with Ariel Ahram and Patrick Köllner.
- Beyond Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), co-authored with Peter J. Katzenstein.
- Managing "Modernity": Work Community and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia (University of Michigan Press, 2002).
Papers (selected)
- “Russia’s Oil and Gas Industry: Soviet Inheritance and Post-Soviet Evolution” (with Mikhail Strokan), in Susanne Wengle, ed. Russian Politics Today (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
- “Analytic Eclecticism – Continuing the Conversation,” Response to contributors to a Special Forum on ‘Analytic Eclecticism and International Relations: Promises and Pitfalls,” published in International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis, 75, 3 (2020): 433-443, available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0020702020962814
- “The Survival and Adaptation of Area Studies.” In SAGE Handbook of Political Science, ed. D. Berg-Schlosser, B. Badie, and L. Morlino (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 2020).
- “The Dynamics of Labor Militancy in the Extractive Sector: Kazakhstan’s Oilfields and South Africa’s Platinum Mines in Comparative Perspective,” (with Allison D. Evans), Comparative Political Studies 53,6 (2020): 992-1024 .
- “Triangulating Area Studies, Not Just Methods: How Cross-Regional Comparison Aids Qualitative and Mixed-Method Research,” in A. Ahram, P. Köllner & R. Sil, eds. Comparative Area studies (Oxford University Press, 2018).
- “The Battle Over Flexibilization in Post-Communist Transitions: Labor Politics in Poland and the Czech Republic, 1989-2010,” Journal of Industrial Relations 59, 4 (2017): 420-443.
- “The Fluidity of Labor Politics in Postcommunist Transitions: Rethinking the Narrative of Russian Labor Quiescence,” in G. Berk, D. Galvan and V. Hattam, eds. Political Creativity: Reconfiguring Institutional Order and Change (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).
- "When Multi-Method Research Subverts Methodological Pluralism - Or, Why We Still Need Single-Method Research" (with Amel Ahmed), Perspectives on Politics 10, 4 (December 2012): 935-953.
- "Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions" (with Peter J. Katzenstein), Perspectives on Politics 8, 2 (June 2010): 411-431.
- "Stretching Postcommunism: Diversity, Context and Comparative Historical Analysis" (with Cheng Chen), Post-Soviet Affairs 23, 4 (2007): 275-301.
- "Communist Legacies, Postcommunist Transformations, and the Fate of Organized Labor in Russia and China" (with Calvin P. Chen). Studies in Comparative International Development, 41, 2 (Summer 2006): 62-87.
- "State Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post-Communist Russia" (with Cheng Chen), Europe-Asia Studies 56, 3 (May 2004).