Sean McGraw, CSC

Rank

Regular Faculty - Assistant Professor

Title

Fellow of Kellogg Institute, Nanovic Institute for European Studies and Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies

Field(s)

Compartive Politics

Education

B.A. Notre Dame (1992), M.Sc. London School of Economics and Political Science (1993), M.Div. Notre Dame (2000), Ph.D. Harvard University (2009)

Research and Teaching Interests

Comparative politics, European politics, political parties, civil society, religion and politics, and the study of Ireland.

Biography

Sean McGraw is a Holy Cross priest originally from Hutchinson, MN. McGraw graduated from Notre Dame with a B.A. degree in Government and International Relations in 1992 and was a four-year member of the Men's Tennis Team. After graduation, McGraw completed a Master's in Western European Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He returned to Notre Dame in the fall of 1993 where he worked with Fr. Tim Scully, CSC, in founding the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) teacher training program. Since then, ACE has grown from a small service organization to a large-scale contributor to Catholic education in the United States, training more than 1,200 teachers and 125 administrators.

McGraw entered the Congregation of Holy Cross in the fall of 1995 and earned his Master's of Divinity from Notre Dame in 2000. McGraw was ordained a priest in April 2001 at Sacred Heart Basilica and served his deacon year and first two years as a priest at Notre Dame High School for Boys in Chicago where he taught history, coached basketball and tennis, served as an interim president during his second year there and also assisted at a local parish. McGraw received his PhD from Harvard University in 2009. He returned to Notre Dame in the fall of 2009 as an Assistant Professor of Political Science teaching Comparative and European politics.

His research focuses on the Irish political system, especially party competition and the changes in the political landscape at a time of unprecedented social and economic change.

McGraw is currently revising for publication his dissertation, "Managing Change: Party Competition in the New Ireland," which explores ways in which the modernization and professionalization of political parties has actually served to preserve more traditional, local politics during elections. One of his next projects is a comparative study of the role of religion in civic life in the United States, England, Northern Ireland and Ireland in collaboration with scholars from Notre Dame and Harvard.

More broadly, McGraw aims to explore the interaction between civil society and social capital, including in particular the impact of religion. His work has appeared in Irish Political Studies, among other journals.

Office Hours

Mondays 3:00pm-4:30pm & Wednesdays 9:00am-10:30am

Contact Information

Office: 416 Decio Hall
Phone: 574-631-7655
Fax: 574-631-4405
Email: mcgraw.4@nd.edu

Mailing Address

Department of Political Science
217 O'Shaughnessy Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556