Paul Christopher Manuel is a political scientist who has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in comparative politics, international relations, American government, public policy and leadership, both in the classroom and online, and who has developed and directed experiential programs in Washington, D.C., Maryland and New Hampshire.
His research and writing concern Portugal, democratization, and religion and politics. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including the comparative politics textbook The Mosaic of Comparative Politics (Cognella, 2026). He divides his time between Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- 1990–1991 Fulbright Scholar, Universidade de Coimbra
- 1992–2008 Professor of Politics (full professor, 2002) and Chair, Department of Politics, Saint Anselm College
- 1993 Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of New Hampshire (Durham and Manchester)
- 1993–2008 Developed and administered internship programs in Manchester, Concord, Boston and Washington, D.C., Department of Politics, Saint Anselm College
- 1997–2008 Co-Founder, Research Director and Executive Director, New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College
- 2008–2010 Chief Operating Officer, Institute for Global Engagement
- 2009–present Affiliated Professor, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, now the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University
- 2010–2016 Founding Director, Institute for Leadership, and Professor of Political Science (tenured 2014), Mount St. Mary’s University
- 2015–2022 Director, Leadership Program, Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer, and Distinguished Scholar, School of Public Affairs, American University
- 2022–present Affiliated Professor, Department of Government, Georgetown University
- 2023–present Affiliated Professor, School of Continuing Studies, Georgetown University
- 2023–2025 Visiting Professor, Claremont McKenna College Washington Program
- 2025 Visiting Professor, New York University, Washington, D.C.
- 2026–present Academic Director, Georgetown University Foreign Policy Academy
Current Roles
Washington, Cambridge and Manchester
presentWashington, D.C.
A three-week residential program that in summer 2026 brought 94 students from 35 states and 20 countries to Washington to learn from ambassadors, State Department officials and foreign service officers. He will direct it again in 2027.
presentWashington, D.C.
He has taught at Georgetown since 2009, first at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, now the McCourt School of Public Policy; in the Department of Government since 2022; and in the School of Continuing Studies since 2023.
In 2026 he returned to Saint Anselm College to teach in the Enduring Questions First Year Program.
presentWashington, D.C.
presentCambridge, Mass.
Career
Three decades of teaching and building programs
Dr. Manuel has spent more than three decades teaching comparative politics and building the kind of programs — an institute of politics in New Hampshire, leadership programs in Maryland and Washington — that take students out of the classroom and into the institutions they study, on the view that students learn politics as much by working inside institutions as by reading about them. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in comparative politics, comparative public policy, international relations and leadership.
Saint Anselm College, 1992–2008
At Saint Anselm College, where he arrived in 1992, he taught as professor of politics (full professor from 2002), chaired the Department of Politics from 1993 to 2008 and co-founded the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, later serving as its research center director and executive director.
Leading Programs, 2008–2022
He went on to be chief operating officer of the Institute for Global Engagement (2008–2010), founding director of the Institute for Leadership at Mount St. Mary’s University, now the Ethical Leaders Program, where he was a tenured professor of political science (2010–2016), and director of the Leadership Program in American University’s School of Public Affairs (2015–2022), and he has since taught in the Washington programs of Claremont McKenna College and New York University.
Earlier Teaching and Service
Earlier in his career he taught at Boston University, Suffolk University, the University of New Hampshire and the University of Maryland at College Park, and he has twice served on the elected executive council of the New England Political Science Association.
Research
Portugal, democracy, and religion and politics
The Captains of April
Dr. Manuel’s research has followed Portugal since the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, a subject he first took up as a Fulbright scholar at the Universidade de Coimbra in 1990–1991, when he interviewed the military officers who had planned and carried out the coup. Those interviews, published in English as Voices of the Revolution (2019) and in Portuguese as Vozes da Revolução (Tinta-da-China, 2024), were designated historically significant by Portugal’s Commission for the 50th Anniversary of April 25.
Beyond the Transition
His later work has moved outward from the transition itself — to civil society and social movements, to the Catholic Church and the faith-based organizations that still carry much of the burden of social welfare in Portugal and elsewhere, and, most recently, to the contest over the memory of the revolution as Chega has turned April 25 into a political weapon.
Books
He has authored, co-authored or edited fifteen books and numerous scholarly articles, most recently The Mosaic of Comparative Politics (Cognella, 2026), Pope Francis Reconsidered (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026), and After the Carnations: Social Movements in Portugal Since the 25 April 1974 Revolution (Liverpool University Press, 2025).