Denise Walsh

Degrees

New School for Social Research, New York, NY
Ph.D., Department of Political Science

Biography

Denise Walsh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics whose research asks how liberal democracies can become more inclusive and just. Her most recent book, Imperial Sexism: Why Culture and Women's Rights Don’t Clash (Oxford University Press, 2025), won the 2026 ISA Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Book Prize. The book compares the face veil ban in France, polygyny in South Africa, and Indigenous women’s Indian status in Canada to argue that a clash between culture and women’s rights is never inescapable. She uncovers what fuels this widely held perception and shows how justice can be advanced for minoritized women and their communities.

Walsh’s current projects examine the forces that impede women’s political participation, including a new book project, Misogyny in Power: Unmaking Democracy, Remaking Capitalism, and a co-authored working paper with Zach Watson on violence against women in politics. Her first book, Women’s Rights in Democratizing States (Cambridge University Press, 2010), compares South Africa, Poland, and Chile to show that when debate is more open and inclusive in institutions like unions and political parties, women’s rights advance.

Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Studies at Notre Dame, USAID, the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, and many others. A former editor of the American Political Science Review and recipient of an all-University Teaching Award, she teaches courses on identity politics; gender politics in Africa; capitalism, empire, and technopolitics; and power, violence and inequality in the global South.