The Rothermere American Institute (RAI) has announced a major donation to fund a new Associate Professorship in US Politics and support the launch of a specialist postgraduate course in the field.
The post, known as the “Churchill Chair”, will be the University of Oxford’s first permanent academic position dedicated to US politics. The role is intended to expand Oxford’s teaching and research in an area that has previously lacked a dedicated postgraduate offering.
Alongside the new chair, the RAI plans to use the anonymous donation to introduce a one-year Master’s degree in contemporary US politics and government. If launched, it would mark the first time Oxford has offered a specialist postgraduate course focused solely on American politics.
A spokesperson for the Institute told Cherwell that the development would be key to Oxford’s broader strategy for strengthening its study of US politics and international relations. The spokesperson added that: “We have a high profile in the US and a long tradition of studying America ‘from the outside in’.” The Institute regularly hosts public events and runs the podcast The Last Best Hope?, positioning itself as a hub for debate and analysis on the United States.
The decision to launch a new postgraduate course comes amid renewed focus on the US’s global role. In a comment to Cherwell, the Institute explained that recent political developments have made “more explicit the underlying reality of the asymmetrical nature of the UK-US relationship”, adding that “everyone thinks they know America because it is culturally so dominant” but that this can obscure the need for more “clear, evidence-based” academic analysis. Professor Adam Smith, Director of the RAI, described the donation as an “extraordinary vote of confidence” in the Institute’s work.
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