Graham Wilson

Professor Graham Wilson joined the Political Science Faculty of Boston University in 2007 and served as Chair of the Department from 2010 until 2015. His areas of specialization include American Politics, Comparative Politics, Business and Government, and Interest Groups. Professor Wilson has served on the Warwick Commission on Directly Elected Mayors exploring how to restructure the leadership of cities in the United Kingdom in order to achieve policy change and dynamism. In 2014, he joined former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino as Co-director and Co-founder of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University where he now serves as Director.

Prior to coming to Boston University, he taught in the La Follette Public Policy School at the University of Wisconsin as well as in the Political Science Department, where he served as Chair. While at La Follette, Professor Wilson partnered with the Department of Natural Resources with the State of Wisconsin to reinvent their approach to environmental regulation. The resulting legislation, known as Green Tier, drew on experience in Germany and the Netherlands as well the US, and is geared to leveraging higher levels of environmental performance from business while reducing regulatory burdens.

Wilson has published ten books and has authored numerous articles and chapters in edited volumes.  His work has focused primarily on interest groups (particularly business) and their relationship with government and policymaking.  He edited the Oxford Handbook of Business and Government published by OUP in February 2010 and authored several of the chapters in it.  He has also published extensively on the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians.

In 2012, Professor Wilson published his newest book, The Consequences of the Global Financial Crisis: The Rhetoric of Reform and Regulation (with Wyn Grant) with Oxford University Press. That same year, he was also awarded the Ulrich Kloti Award for Lifetime Achievement from the “Structure and Organization of Government Research Committee” of the International Political Science Association.

Professor Wilson received his BA and Doctorate of Philosophy from Oxford University and his MA from the University of Essex.