Barry Rabe
Barry Rabe is a political scientist and environmental policy scholar who became a Ford School Professor Emeritus in 2025. He served as the Arthur Thurnau Professor of Environmental Policy and the J. Ira and Nikki Harris Chair of Public Policy during his decades at Ford. He remains active in research and policy engagement and is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada.
Rabe examines the politics of environmental and energy policy, with a particular emphasis on efforts to address climate change in the United States and other nations. He emphasizes the need for considering a policy life-cycle analysis, moving beyond initial adoption to consider longer-term implementation questions, including durability and performance. His current research considers the politics of shorter-lived climate pollutants such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and nitrous oxides. He is the author or co-author of six books and co-edits a leading environmental policy textbook with Michael Kraft that was most recently revised in 2025.
Rabe has received five awards in honor of his research from the American Political Science Association, including the 2025 Elinor Ostrom Award for career contributions to the study of environmental policy and the 2017 Martha Derthick Award for a lasting book contribution to the field of federalism and intergovernmental relations. He has also received research awards from the National Academy of Public Administration, the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, and the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration. Rabe was the first social scientist to receive an Environmental Protection Agency Climate Protection Award and continues to be regularly cited and quoted in the media in the United States and abroad. He regularly engages with many former University of Michigan students from several decades of teaching a range of undergraduate and graduate courses.
View Rabe's profiles on the Brookings Institution and Balsillie School of International Affairs
sites.
Educational background
- PhD in political science, University of Chicago
- MA in social sciences, University of Chicago
- BA in history, Carthage College
Professional affiliations
- Elected fellow, National Academy of Public Administration (visit NAPA profile)
- Non-resident senior fellow in governance studies, Brookings Institution (visit Brookings profile)
- Fellow, Balsillie School of International Affairs (visit Balsillie profile)
- American Political Science Association
Current research
- Politics of shorter-lived climate pollutants in the United States and abroad (methane, hydrocarbons, nitrous oxides)
- Nuclear waste management and politics
- Climate policy in federal systems of government
Recent publications
- "Global Climate Policy Durability Amid American Backtracking: Cooling Sector Chemicals in the Kigali Era," Balsillie Papers, volume 9, issue 2 (April 2026): 1-13.
- "The Politics of Nuclear Waste Management and the Divergent Paths of the United States and Canada," American Review of Canadian Studies, volume 55, number 3 (March 2026): 326-343.
- "Reducing Nitrogen Losses to Protect Food and Environmental Security," New Security Beat (Stimson Center); May 18, 2026.
- "The Arrival of Geothermal in American Energy Policy," FixGov (Brookings Institution); March 2026.
- Michael E. Kraft, Barry G. Rabe, and Norman J. Vig eds., Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-First Century (CQ Press, 2025).
