Pennsylvania’s center for global policy engagement has announced that Sarah Bush, associate professor in the department of political science at Yale University, will be its 2019-2020 Lightning Scholar. Selected for both the academic rigor and policy relevance of her work, Dr. Bush will be in residence in Philadelphia for the academic year. 

“The Lightning Scholars Program is one of the many ways Perry World House supports research relevant to those seeking to address global challenges, whether climate change or nuclear competition,” said William Burke-White, Richard Perry Professor and Inaugural Director of Perry World House. “In choosing Sarah Bush, we are promoting a top-flight scholar still early in her career, bringing a new voice to campus, and catalyzing research that will have a real policy impact.” 

The Perry World House Lightning Scholars Program allows Penn to further support policy relevant researchers by inviting untenured faculty members for a semester or full academic year to Penn. In addition to producing a major research output, the Lightning Scholar is expected to collaborate with the interdisciplinary and vibrant community of global affairs scholars and practitioners at Perry World House. 

Dr. Bush is the author of the book The Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators (Cambridge University Press, 2015). At Perry World House, she will continue to examine how international actors try to aid democracy, promote women’s representation and support elections in developing countries. Dr. Bush will also complete a book, with Lauren Prather from UC San Diego, called From Monitoring to Meddling: How Foreign Actors Shape Local Trust in Elections. 

Dr. Bush earned her PhD from Princeton University’s department of politics, served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, and taught at Temple University. Her writing has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, the Washington Post and ForeignPolicy.com.