"The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism" with Theda Skocpol on Tuesday 5/1 at 4:30 PM

With the 2012 Presidential elections rapidly approaching, the political landscape is set for a showdown between President Obama and a Republican contender. The Republican Party, however, is currently one of transition, division, and doubt. Harvard Government and Sociology professor Theda Skocpol has studied and will speak to the emergence of the Tea Party and the new Republican Conservatism.

Ever since CNBC commentator Rick Santelli lambasted the Obama Administration in 2009 and called for "Tea Party" protests, America has seen thousands of conservative activists take to the streets. With votes and monetary efforts, their movement prompted many right-wing Republican electoral victories in 2010. Harvard's Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson studied this movement and have written a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party.

Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. At Harvard, she has served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2005-2007) and as Director of the Center for American Political Studies (2000-2006).  In 1996, Skocpol served as President of the Social Science History Association and, in 2002-2003, she served as President of the American Political Science Association. Skocpol has also been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. Her work covers a broad spectrum of topics including both comparative politics (States and Social Revolutions, 1979) and American politics (Protecting Soldiers and Mothers, 1992).  Her books and articles have been widely cited in political science literature and have won numerous awards. Skocpol's research focuses on U.S. social policy and civic engagement in American democracy. Her most recent books are Health Care Reform and American Politics,2010 (with Lawrence R. Jacobs), Reaching for a New Deal: Ambitious Governance, Economic Meltdown, and Polarized Politics in Obama's First Two Years, 2011 (co-edited with Lawrence R. Jacobs), and The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, 2011 (with Vanessa Williamson).

Please join us for the Class of 1930 Fellow Lecture by Professor Theda Skocpol, "The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism," at Rockefeller 003 at 4:30 pm.