Political Science Faculty

Michael Hartney

Associate Professor

Biography

Michael Hartney joined the Boston College political science听faculty in fall 2017. Professor Hartney鈥檚 main research and teaching interests听include: state and local politics, interest groups, and public policy. His听scholarship has been published in leading academic journals such as the American听Journal of Political Science, the American Political Science Review,听Perspectives on Politics, and Public Administration Review and听has garnered coverage in the Economist, New York Times, Washington听Post, and Wall Street Journal.

In 2022, the University of Chicago Press published his first听book: How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American听Education. The book explains the rise of teachers unions to their current听place of status and influence in the United States, detailing how state and听local governments adopted policies that subsidized鈥攁nd in turn strengthened鈥攖he听power of unions in education politics.

At Boston College, Hartney teaches courses on the politics听of education, environmental policy, and US state and local politics. He is also听a research affiliate at Harvard University鈥檚 Program on Education Policy and听Governance (PEPG), and, in 2020-21, a national fellow at Stanford University鈥檚听Hoover Institution.听听

Prior to academia, Hartney worked as a policy analyst for听the听National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. At NGA, he听provided policy analysis to听governors on a wide range of K鈥12 school听reform issues, from teacher and听principal quality to high school redesign.听听Hartney holds a Ph.D. in political听science from the University of Notre听Dame and a bachelor鈥檚 degree, also in听political science, from Vanderbilt听University.