Patricia Sykes

Fulbright ANU Distinguished Chair

Media Profile

“Anglo-American systems often serve as models of democracy in political science and in global politics, but the experiences of women leaders as executives call into question the democratic character of those regimes”.

Patricia Sykes, an Associate Professor in the Department of Government at American University, is the 2007-08 Fulbright Australian National University Distinguished Chair in American Political Science. The Scholarship, established by the Australian National University (ANU) and the Fulbright Commission, aims to build collaborative research and focus on the study of the United States in Australia.

Patricia will join the ANU in Canberra for five months in January 2008 to study of executive leadership in Anglo-American nations.

“Political scientists in the U.S. tend to study the U.S. alone, an approach that fosters American exceptionalism in scholarship and practical politics. Comparative analysis highlights the significance of the fundamental ideas and institutions that the U.S. shares with other Anglo nations.”

Patricia will use her Fulbright to continue her current research on women as executive leaders in Anglo-American systems, start collaborative projects with ANU faculty members, and deliver a series of visiting guest lectures throughout Australia on the 2008 presidential election.

Patricia believes that gender analysis of executive leadership in Anglo-American systems can reveal why so few women succeed. “Gender studies and research on executive leadership constitute separate subfields that rarely overlap empirically or theoretically. Scholars who investigate the role of women in politics have increased our knowledge about women legislators and the (under) representation of women across countries.”

Patricia’s research bridges the gap between gender studies and leadership and adds to our knowledge about women executives in several countries, including the US and Australia.

Patricia is a graduate from Boston College and completed a PhD in Political Science from Yale University. She has previously spent time at the ANU when she was Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences for two months in 2003.

Patricia has previously been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland in 1997-98. Her publications include two books: Presidents and Prime Minister: Conviction Politics in the Anglo-American Tradition and Losing from the Inside: the Cost of Conflict in the British Social Democratic Party. She has also published articles in such journals as Presidential Studies Quarterly and Studies in American Political Development. Patricia was the recipient of the National Endowment for Humanities Award in 1990.