Biography

Samuel Bagg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, where he teaches courses in political theory. Before coming to USC, he taught at the University of Oxford, McGill University, and Duke University, where he received his PhD in 2017.

His research aims to ground democratic theorizing in a realistic picture of the dynamics of social inequality and political power. Among other venues, it has appeared in the American Political Science Review; the American Journal of Political Science; the Journal of Politics; Perspectives on Politics; the Journal of Political Philosophy; the European Journal of Political Theory; Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; Social Philosophy and Policy; Social Theory and Practice; and Political Research Quarterly. His first book (The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy) synthesizes much of this work, offering a distinctive and comprehensive account of why democracy matters and how to make it better. It was published in 2024 by Oxford University Press.