Summer 2025: Dr. Rachel Brulé (Pardee)
Dr. Rachel Brulé is an associate professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. She is also the 2024-2025 SAGE Sara Miller McCune Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She is Graduate Faculty with BU’s Department of Political Science, Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the Global Development Policy Center and affiliated faculty with the Institute for Economic Development.
Professor Brulé’s research identifies the conditions under which political, economic, and social systems rebalance gendered power. She is a political scientist who bridges development economics and feminist theory, combining careful causal identification with innovative theory building and extensive field research in South Asia. Gendered power hierarchies define our current political system, from the family to the local, national, and global. Her work points to the need to critically reckon with the dual movements of progress towards and backlash against gender equality. Understanding the complexity of gendered power and the consequences of its disruption are necessary to solve the most intractable contemporary problems, from climate change to economic inequality and conflict.
What made you decide to be a social scientist/ why does social science matter to you?
Some of my earliest memories are arguments – passionate debates – with my parents and grandparents about the nature of justice and our obligation to not only acknowledge injustice, but also to repair the wounds injustice creates while working to build a better world for everyone. This led me to the core social science question with which I continue to wrestle: inequality. I believe one of the hardest and most consequential challenges of our time is how we can (re)build political, economic, social, and environmental systems with truly equitable distributions of power. Many attempts to do just that – by states, revolutionary social movements, and economic reforms by technocrats or corporations– fail spectacularly, further advancing inequalities with destructive impacts for (nearly) all citizens. The question of how we can do better, to improve our collective wellbeing, is what motivates my research and I think social scientists are best placed to answer it.
Can you tell us about a recent research project that you’re excited about?
I’m currently pursuing research across four countries that explores the conditions under which political, economic, and social systems rebalance power in favor of gender equality: India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the United States. Contrary to the popular view that gendered power becomes more equal as liberal democracies develop, I find backlash accompanies gender-equalizing change. Backlash seeks to undo gender-equalizing progress, yet it may enable solidarity that advances gender equality. I ask: What explains the scope of gender backlash? When does it amplify women’s solidarity, and when does solidarity promote universal welfare improvements? This research was initially funded by an NSF CAREER Award that I received last July. Although my award was terminated last month, four years early, I will continue this research. I am deeply grateful for the solidarity that CISS, the Pardee School, the Economics and the Political Science Departments, the GDP Center, and my community inside and outside BU provide, which is particularly invaluable in these times.
What is the best piece of professional advice you ever received?
When you consider what path to take in your professional life, choose one where joy and purpose are at the center. These can fuel you to lead a life of deep meaning and inner peace, with the strength required to endure and transcend the challenges you will face along the way.
What is your favorite course you’ve taught at BU?
I love teaching Gender and Global Politics (IR 354), because I get to see my students shift the way they see the world, the way they experience their education, and the way they imagine their future. It is a gift to engage with and support students as their imaginations expand beyond what they formerly believed possible, and their sense of self, their agency, expands too.
Tell us a surprising fact about yourself.
One of my favorite places in the world is Ladakh, a high altitude desert in the Himalayas, which I first reached by way of a houseboat on which Manmohan Singh, India’s former Prime Minister, had once resided.