Biography

Emma Saunders-Hastings is a political theorist whose research focuses on political, economic, and social inequality, with particular attention to the role of private power. Her book Private Virtues, Public Vices: Philanthropy and Democratic Equality (University of Chicago Press, 2022) develops a democratic political theory of philanthropy, focusing on the problems of plutocracy and paternalism. Her research has been published in journals including the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Politics, as well as in edited volumes including Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Wealth and Power: Philosophical Perspectives (Routledge 2022). She has also written about philanthropy for a general audience in the Boston Review, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and at histphil.org. Her broader research and teaching interests include normative political theory, democratic theory, nineteenth century political thought, non-ideal and institutional theory, and feminist theories. Before coming to Ohio State, she was a Harper Fellow in the Society of Fellows at the University of Chicago and a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS). She holds a PhD from the Department of Government at Harvard University and an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge.