Clarissa Rile Hayward

Clarissa Rile Hayward is Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also serves as Associate Chair of the department and holds courtesy appointments in Philosophy and American Culture Studies. A contemporary political theorist, she is known for integrating empirical studies of institutions and urban life into normative debates about power, democracy, and identity.

Education: PhD, Yale University.

Research focus: Hayward interrogates how social power operates through institutional rules, spatial arrangements, and everyday practices that shape both freedom and identity. Refusing abstract “ideal theory,” she analyzes concrete cases—especially American urban politics and racial formation—to show how seemingly neutral structures enact “thick injustice.”

Her books—De-Facing Power, How Americans Make Race, and Justice and the American Metropolis—have reshaped conversations on structural power, racial identity, and metropolitan inequality. Articles in American Political Science Review, Political Theory, and The Journal of Politics extend these themes, while recent work turns to digital democracy and the normative stakes of publicity and disruption.

Awards:

• American Political Science Association Best Book in Urban Politics (2014) for How Americans Make Race

Grants & Fellowships:

• National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
• Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard
• Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School
• Visiting Fellowship, All Souls College, Oxford (2024-2025)

She teaches undergraduate surveys in American political thought and graduate field seminars in political theory, and mentors a large cohort of doctoral students working on power, democracy, and urban justice.