Stephen C. Phillips, PhD

Stephen C. Phillips is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Clemson University. He serves as a Teagle Fellow and faculty adviser for Pi Sigma Alpha, and specializes in U.S. political institutions and public law. Stephen’s research and teaching interests include American political and constitutional development, with a focus on the nexus of public law, public policy, and political strategy.

Stephen is currently working on a book project examining public policy debates on civil rights during the post-war period to study how political actors produce policy change on items long-stalled on the institutional agenda. For his research on the civil rights movment and second-wave feminism, Stephen earned the James W. Button Memorial Award for scholarship focused on race relations, poverty, or diversity issues.

His research has been published in Public Choice, the Journal of Political Science Education, and The Conversation. The thread linking Stephen's research is the desire to understand the connections between political strategy and the evolving framework of American democracy. He is particularly interested in how policy entrepreneurs provoke and sustain institutional, ideational, and policy development.

Stephen received his doctoral degree from the University of Florida. He earned his master's and bachelor's degree from the University of Central Florida. Prior to entering academia, he worked on federal political campaigns as well as for a local affiliate of the AFL-CIO. His experience in politics and organized labor sparked his interest in political action and civil rights.