All advice are welcomed!
I felt clumsy when I tried to explain my fit with the program. I did my homework in searching university faculty carefully and I read their papers, but I don't know how to say it in my essay. Should I be explicit about several professor or should I give general compliment to the program as a whole?
I also felt that maybe I have spend too much time in personal experience. What do you think? Thanks very much!!!
My research interest lies in political transition, conflicts and democrat consolidation. I am concerning with three questions: why democratization happens in some countries while others not; why some countries achieved democrat by peaceful transition while others through revolution; and why some countries can consolidate democrat while others are subverted by coup or fall into endless civil wars. I am interested in building a universal model and theory for all these questions, regardless different regions, nationalities and cultures. And I would like to pursue PhD in political science to continue my study.
Why democratization? To realized democracy in China has been a universal mighty dream for all ambitious and progressive Chinese youth, and I used to be one of them.I have been fancied with the idea of democracy when I was in middle school, reading about the pungent and trenchant critics about Chinese government in forbidden magazines. I used to have passionate debates about the democratic future of China with my father, a conservative military strategist. He always blamed me for being "totally ignorant in democracy and politics". I snubbed his remarks, because I read books from Aristotle to Huntington to learn politics and democracy. Democracy is about freedom and equality, making everybody involved in the decision making process. It is true, but later I learned that democracy is much more than that.
When I entered college, I joined British Parliament debating society and I made the top debater due to my compelling speech and knowledge in politics. I was particularly good at motions on democracy and international issues, but I had lost only once, and I would call that failure a milestone in my study. It was semi-final at Asian Debate Open and the motion was "Egypt will be better off with a secular authoritarian than a democratic government." I was the Prime Minister in opening government, which means I had to propose this motion by attacking democracy and defending autocracy. I could hardly find any existing theory to support the motion. After 15-minute sloppy preparation, I simply blamed democratic movement for the chaotic situation in Egypt. Later I was enlightened by the speech delivered by the member of government, who was the winner of this debate. He elucidated explicitly why and how democratization in Egypt led to chaos and stagnancy and why secular autocracy is the solution. He weighed pros and cons with meticulous calculation in economic terms and drew the conclusion that authoritarian would have better payoff in Egypt. It was the first time I learned about quantitative method in political science and it revolutionized my understanding of democracy. I started to judge democracy in perspective of utility. Democratization, or any other political transition, is more of an interest-oriented redistribution than other sublime ideals. In other word, political transition is about who get what through how. Democratization is a way to adjust the imbalance status quo, and democracy is the equilibrium of redistribution. I was mesmerized by this perspective of democratization and I decided to pursue a further study in this field.
Through my undergraduate study in culture and language, I have gained solid foundation in both qualitative and quantitative methods. I have conducted cross-cultural studies using qualitative methodologies like interviewing and ethnographic analysis. My research experience in cognitive linguistics prepared me with robust skills in math, formal modeling and statistical analysis. I am good at calculus, probability and statistics and adroit at SPSS and Matlab. To develop my research ability in political science, I attended game theory course at IPSA-NUS methods summer school. It was unforgettable for me and I learned so much. For two weeks, I was immerged the brilliant lectures given by distinguished professors and luminous discussions with outstanding political researchers from worldwide. I also finished my first scientific research paper in political science using formal modeling and game theory at the summer school. The paper was inspired by the debates of economical inequality and democratization. I revised the traditional model in two aspects: people's payoff when the revolution succeed and people's lost if the revolution failed and I got the conclusion that economic factors (inequality, GDP growth, etc) influence how violence the transition would be, while the determinant trigger is how punitive the autocracy is. Math skills and quantitate knowledges were highly valued in my study, but I found that the essence of formal modeling is to build the right model. My study in culture and languages gave me an acute perception towards different cultures, which enables me to examine political events in the perspective of humanity and better understanding the similarity underlying different cultures.
For my future research, I would like to work on the improvement of the model. My next-step research plan would be including the middle class in my model and to study the role of middle class in political transition in autocracies. I am also looking forward to utilizing formal modeling in democrat consolidation and international conflicts. I believe that XXX University would be a great fit for me, for your strong faculty in formal theory, comparative politics and international relations. I was excited when I studied the research interest for each professor on the website, since there were many professors studying democratization, conflicts and peacebuilding. XXX University also has the most renowned game theorists in the world, like XXX with his work on XXX. I am really looking forward to study in XXXX University.
Hello,
This is a good SOP but you are lacking one crucial component. You do not talk about any of the resources of the specific school/program that you look forward to taking advantage of. This can be several things from the professors to research departments to specific courses. The key to a great SOP is to link directly how obtaining the degree at this stage in your life is more of a "Need" rather than a desire. That will make for a really strong SOP. We can help. -Admissions Advice Online
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