Associate Professor of Political Science
Director of the Center for Women’s Research & Public Policy

OFFICE: 202 Painter Hall
EMAIL: cerainey@muw.edu
PHONE: 662-329-7173

About Dr. Rainey

B.A. in Political Science and English, Huntingdon College
Ph.D. in Political Science, with a concentration in Comparative Politics, University of Alabama

Teaching areas: Contentious politics (encompassing phenomena from political protest to revolution to civil war), regimes and repression, deliberative democracy, women in politics, the politics of signification and public discourse, social movements and frame analysis, multiculturalism and ethnic power-sharing, the politics of sexual and reproductive rights, as well as feminist theory.

Research areas: Women in politics, contentious politics, and comparative politics, but also the question of how women’s movements affect political discourse and engage gender, race and ethnicity, and religion as they contest public policy on reproductive health, family law, and other areas. 

Selected projects:

• “That Kind of Woman: Women’s Participation in Abortion Discourse and Gender Construction,” co-authored with Dr. Simanti Lahiri and Ishita Chowdhury; co-presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Conference, Spring 2016.
• “Universal Rights and Cultural Prerogatives: Negotiating Girls’ Age of Marriage in Multicultural Trinidad,” Midwest Political Science Association Conference, Spring 2014.