About

I am a PhD student in comparative politics at the University of California, Berkeley. I am broadly interested in populism, parties, and elites across Western democracies, principally Western Europe.

Recently, my research interests have 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. Methodologically, I am interested in combining qualitative, historical case studies with text-as-data methods.

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 help organize our department's Qualitative Methods Workshop and lead Queer Political Scientists (QPS), our affinity group for LGBTQIA+ students and faculty.

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 love singing, baking (and eating) lots of pâtisserie, and rewatching shows that were once on the WB like Buffy, Dawson's Creek, and Felicity.

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+ applicants, regarding the application process and graduate school more generally.

Education

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)