Paul Pierson (born 1959) is a professor of political science and holder of the Avice Saint Chair of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2007-2010 he served at UC Berkeley as Chair of the Department of Political Science. He is noted for his research on comparative public policy and political economy, the welfare state, and American political development.
Pierson is a native of Eugene, Oregon, where both of his parents taught at the University of Oregon. He graduated with a B.A. in political science from Oberlin College in 1981, and then attended graduate school at Yale University, completing an M.A. and M.Phil in 1986 and a PhD degree in political science in 1989.
Pierson taught at Harvard University from 1989 to 2004, when he moved to the University of California, Berkeley.[1] He was a visiting professor at the European University Institute in 1999.
Pierson's first book, Dismantling the Welfare State?, was a revision of his doctoral dissertation and won the American Political Science Association's Kammerer Prize for the best work on American national politics published in 1994. His journal article “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics” won the Heinz Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review in 2000. His most recent book is Winner-Take-All Politics.
Pierson was president of the Politics and History Section of the American Political Science Association for 2003-04.
Pierson is married to Tracey Goldberg, a landscape architect. They live in Berkeley, CA with their two children.