About

I am a PhD student in comparative politics at the University of California, Berkeley. I am broadly interested in political parties, right-wing politics, nationalism, and elites across Western democracies with a particular emphasis on French politics. Methodologically, I focus on comparative case studies, elite interviews, and text-as-data methods to develop and test theories. I will be a visiting scholar at Sciences Po in Paris for the 2026-2027 academic year with the support of a Fulbright Study/Research grant for fieldwork related to my dissertation. You can find a copy of my CV linked here.

My dissertation project project centers how and why mainstream European conservative parties, such as the French neo-Gaullists, Spanish People's Party, and German CDU/CSU, have varied in their elite strategic responses to such phenomena as the Global Financial Crisis, European Constitutional Treaty, and debates around same-sex marriage. My recent research has also centered the political leaders of populist parties with an emphasis on how party leader identity and background can combine with rhetoric to enable some historically fringe parties to become mainstream. I am primarily interested in right-wing populist parties like Le Rassemblement national in France, but I want to investigate how these ideas apply to left-wing populist parties like Sinn Féin in Ireland as well. 

I earned my BA (with highest honors) in Government, French, and Plan II Honors at the University of Texas at Austin in May 2022. While at UT, I received the William Jennings Bryan Prize for best undergraduate thesis in Government. At Berkeley, I am proud to have helped organize our department's Comparative Politics Colloquium from 2025-2026 and to have served as co-president of our Political Science Graduate Students' Association (PSGSA) for 2025.

I grew up in Lucas, Texas which is (sort of) near Dallas and fell in love with European politics as an avid French learner from my freshman year of high school. Outside of academia, I enjoy cooking Southern dishes, logging movies on Letterboxd, and contemporary French literature.

Please feel free to email me about research or anything I've mentioned here at grant_durow@berkeley.edu! I am also more than happy to respond to questions from prospective PhD students in political science, especially LGBTQIA+ and first-gen applicants, regarding the application process and graduate school more generally.

Education

MA, Political Science | The University of California, Berkeley

BA (with highest honors), Government, French, and Plan II Honors | The University of Texas at Austin

Experience

Project manager and Clark Scholar | The Edward A. Clark Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies

Research intern | The Comparative Constitutions Project

English teaching assistant | The Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF)