Professor Emerita of Political Science
Boston University
Phone: 617-817-4755
E-mail: cjmartin@bu.edu
Education: Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; M.S.W., University of Washington; B.A., Carleton College
Areas of Specialization: Comparative Politics; Political Economy; Comparative Public Policy
Cathie Jo Martin is Professor Emerita of Political Science at Boston University. She is the former chair of the Council for European Studies, former director of the BU Center for the Study of Europe, former co-chair (with Jane Mansbridge) of the 2013 APSA Presidential Task Force on Political Negotiation, and former chair of the Comparative Politics Section and the Politics and History Section of APSA.
Her most recent book, Education for All? Literature, Culture and Education Development in Britain and Denmark (Cambridge University Press 2023), explores the cultural origins of diverse education systems (using computational analyses of British and Danish literature) and the impacts of these systems on skills and social inclusion. Education for All? won the best book award from the European Politics and Society Section of the American Political Science Association in 2024. Her prior book, The Political Construction of Business Interests: Coordination, Growth and Equality (co-authored with Duane Swank, Cambridge University Press 2012) won the David Greenstone book prize from the Politics and History Section of APSA in 2013. This work investigates the origins of coordinated capitalism and the circumstances under which employers are persuaded to endorse social policies promoting economic productivity and social solidarity.
She is also author of Stuck in Neutral: Business and the Politics of Human Capital Investment Policy (Princeton University Press, 2000), Shifting the Burden: the Struggle over Growth and Corporate Taxation (University of Chicago Press, 1991) and the co-edited volume (with Jane Mansbridge) Political Negotiation (Brookings 2015). She has written articles appearing in journals such as the American Political Science Review, World Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Governance, Socio-Economic Review, European Journal of Sociology, and Politics and Society among others.
She has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Russell Sage Foundation, the University of Copenhagen and the MaxPo Center at Sciences Po. In addition, she has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, the Danish Social Science Research Council, the BU Hariri Institute, the BU Humanities Foundation and the National Science Foundation. She holds positions of Research Associate at the Danish Center for Welfare Studies, University of Southern Denmark and received an honorary doctorate from that university in 2019. Professor Martin received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. She lives with her wonderful husband, Jim Milkey, in Newton, Massachusetts, and is the proud mother of two adult sons.