Rate My Professor Michael Goodhart

Michael Goodhart is Professor of Political Science and of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, holding a courtesy appointment as Professor of Philosophy and serving as a faculty fellow in the University Honors College. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2000. Throughout his career, Goodhart has held significant leadership positions, including Director of the University's Global Studies Center from 2017 to 2021. He was a fellow in residence at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala during the 2021-22 academic year and served as Guest Professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin from 2008 to 2010. His accolades include the Provost's Award for Diversity in the Curriculum in 2018 and an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research fellowship in 2008-09. Goodhart is an elected member of the American Political Science Association Council for 2024-27, co-President of the Association for Political Theory from 2017 to 2020, past President of the APSA Human Rights section, and chair of the APSA Presidential Task Force on Democracy, Economic Security, and Social Justice in a Volatile World. He serves on the Provost's Committee on Anti-Black Racism and Transformative Pedagogy and sits on several editorial boards.

Goodhart's research centers on democracy, human rights, justice and injustice, emancipatory political struggles, political theory, ethics, responsibility, and neoliberalism. He is the author of Injustice: Political Theory for the Real World (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Democracy as Human Rights: Freedom and Equality in the Age of Globalization (Routledge, 2005). He contributed as editor to Human Rights: Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, editions 2009, 2012, 2016, 2022) and co-edited Social Movements and World-System Transformation (Routledge, 2017) with Jackie Smith, Patrick Manning, and John Markoff, as well as Human Rights in the 21st Century: Continuity and Change since 9/11 (Palgrave, 2011). Notable articles include 'Climate Change and the Politics of Responsibility' in Perspectives on Politics (2023) and 'Liberal Pragmatism and Liberal Fantasy in the Era of Backlash Politics' in Political Science Quarterly (2023). He has lectured widely in North America and internationally, is an affiliate of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut and the Center for Ethics and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and serves as President of the board of directors of The Global Switchboard, promoting human rights and social justice in the Pittsburgh region. Currently, he is completing a book manuscript titled The Enigma of Human Rights.