Grant Durow

I am a second-year PhD student specializing in comparative politics with a regional focus on Western Europe. My research examines the development of populist and challenger political parties, their influence on mainstream politics, and the role of party leaders. I also explore how religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church, have shaped the development of welfare states and immigration policies in Western democracies. Additionally, I focus on how secularization affects the identities and policy priorities of historically confessional parties. While my work draws comparisons across Western democracies, I principally focus on France and Ireland as case studies. As a qualitative methodologist, I am also actively involved in organizing our department’s Qualitative Methods Workshop.

I hold a BA in Government, French, and Plan II Honors from the University of Texas at Austin where I have previously done research on Australian politics as Clark Scholar at the Edward A. Clark Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies. I additionally wrote my undergraduate thesis on the mainstreaming of right-wing populist political rhetoric in France and Australia which won UT's William Jennings Bryan Prize for best undergraduate thesis in Government. I spent the 2022-2023 academic year as an English teaching assistant in Lille, France, and I was rewarded a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship from the US government to study German in Berlin during summer 2024.