Cathie Jo Martin

Political Science professor, Cathie Jo Martin poses for a photo on Thursday, January 16, 2014. She co-wrote and co-edited a report by political scientists on how Congress found better negotiate and break gridlock. Photo by Jacke Ricciardi for Boston University Photography

Professor of Political Science

Office: 232 Bay State Road, Room 311A, Boston, MA 02215
Phone: 617.353.3798
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 of Political Science at Boston University. She is also chair of the Politics and History section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), former chair of the APSA Comparative Politics Section, former chair of the Council for European Studies, former Director of the BU Center for the Study of Europe and former co-chair (with Jane Mansbridge) of the 2013 APSA Presidential Task Force on Political Negotiation.

Her current work explores the cultural origins of diverse education systems (using computational analyses of British and Danish literature) and the impacts of these systems on the social inclusion and low-skill youth. Her most recent 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. The book 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 (with Jane Mansbridge) Political Negotiation (Brookings 2015). She has written articles appearing in journals such as the American Political Science ReviewWorld Politics, the British Journal of Political ScienceComparative Political StudiesGovernanceSocio-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.