Peter Swenson

Peter A. Swenson, (Ph.D., Yale University, 1986), is Yale's C.M. Saden Professor of Political Science. He specializes in the comparative political economy of labor markets and social welfare in Europe and the United States. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on the economic, political and social foundations of social policy and market regulation in developed capitalist democracies.

Among other things, Swenson is the author of two books, Fair Shares: Unions, Pay and Politics in Sweden and West Germany (1989) and Capitalists against Markets: The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden (2002). Recently he was awarded the APSA's Follett Prize for best article in politics and history for "Varieties of Capitalist Interests: Power, Institutions, and the Regulatory Welfare State in the United States and Sweden" (Studies in American Political Development, 2004).

His current project, Brought to Heal: A Century of Medical Politics in America, turns to the history and political economy of medical reform and medical progress. It covers subjects like medical education and research, the financing and organization of health care delivery through various forms of inisurance, and the evolution of evidence-based regulation of medical decision making. This is part of a larger long-term research project which is comparative in nature, analyzing the shifting interests and coalitions of organized provider, business, and labor groups in the evolution of national health care systems.

Campus address: 115 Prospect St., Rosenkranz Hall, Room 306
Phone: 432-5677
Email: peter.swenson@yale.edu