Phillip Ayoub

Biography

Phillip Ayoub joined the Department of Politics as an assistant professor in 2014, after spending a year as Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute. He received his PhD from the Department of Government at Cornell University. His research bridges insights from international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on marginalized populations, transnational politics, norm diffusion and the study of social movements. In 2016, Cambridge University Press published his book, "When States ‘Come Out’: The Politics of Visibility and the Diffusion of Sexual Minority Rights in Europe", which explains how the transnational mobilization of marginalized peoples and international channels of visibility influence social and legal change across states. Using a mixed-method approach that combines large-n quantitative analysis with in-depth qualitative analysis of key cases, it explores the domestic conditions under which international norms governing LGBT rights are most likely to spread. The earlier dissertation project won the American Political Science Association’s Human Rights Section award for Best Dissertation, and the American Political Science Association’s Sexuality and Politics Section award for Best Dissertation, and the European Union Studies Association biennial 2013-14 prize for best dissertation. It also received the 2014 Janice N. and Milton J. Esman Graduate Prize for distinguished scholarship, and the 2011 George McT. Kahin Prize for the research in the areas of international relations and foreign policy studies judged to hold the greatest promise as a contribution to the discipline (both from Cornell University)

Research Interest

Transnational politics, social movements, gender and politics, international norm diffusion, and human rights.