Helen Milner

Helen V. Milner (born 1958) is an American political scientist. She is currently the B. C. Forbes Professor of Public Affairs at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs, where she also directs the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance. She has written extensively on issues related to international political economy, including international trade, the connections between domestic politics and foreign policy, globalization and regionalism, and the relationship between democracy and trade policy. In 2026, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Education Milner graduated with a BA (honors) in international relations from Stanford University in 1980 and earned her Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1986.

Academic career In 1986, she became a professor at Columbia University, where between 2001 and 2004 she held the position of James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations. She joined Princeton University in 2005, where she served as chair of its Politics department until 2011.

In 2012-2014, she served as president of the International Political Science Association.

In 2021-2022, she served as president of the International Studies Association.

Currently, she is conducting research on issues related to globalization and development, such as the political economy of foreign aid, the digital divide and the global diffusion of the internet, and the relationship between globalization and environmental policy.

Research In her 1988 book Resisting Protectionism, Milner seeks to explain why U.S. trade policy in the 1920s was more protectionist than in the 1970s, despite many similar underlying conditions. She argues that greater economic interdependence in the latter period created a coalition of actors who stood to gain from trade and thus lobbied against protectionism.

Awards

Phi Beta Kappa, Stanford University, 1979. Ray Atherton Fellowship in International Relations, Harvard University, 1980–1981 and 1981–1982. Teaching Fellowship, Harvard University, 1982–1983. Research Fellowship, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1983–1984. Kennedy Traveling Fellowship, Harvard University, 1985, dissertation research in Paris at the Atlantic Institute for International Relations. Sumner Prize, awarded by Harvard University for the exceptional thesis in international law and peace, June 1986. Summer Fellowship, Columbia University Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 1987 and 1988. German Marshall Fund Fellowship, 1989-90 (declined). Social Science Research Council Advanced Research Fellowship in Foreign Policy Studies, 1989-91. Research grants, Institute for Social and Economic Policy Research, Columbia University, 1999-2002. Member, Council on Foreign Relations, 2002–present. Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000–present. Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford CA., 2001–02. Fellow, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy, summer 2004. Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, elected 2019