About

AJ Rice is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Black Studies and the Center for Black Studies Research. His research sits at the intersection of Black politics, American political economy, and urban governance, with a focus on how racial ideologies shape public institutions and democratic life in American cities.

His book project, drawn from over a decade of research on Detroit, examines how state takeover policies have been used to dismantle democratic governance in Black urban school districts. The project traces the political processes through which public schools are constructed as failures—revealing how elite discourse, racial narratives, and market-oriented reform agendas converge to justify the displacement of locally elected institutions. His work draws on archival research, legislative records, in-depth interviews, and process tracing to illuminate the mechanisms through which race becomes embedded in policy design.

His writing has appeared in the Journal of Public Policy, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Perspectives on Politics, The Popular Culture Studies Journal, and Text and Performance Quarterly.

Before joining UCSB, Rice was a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA in the Department of Political Science. He holds a Ph.D. in African American and African Studies from Michigan State University, an M.A. in Politics from The New School for Social Research, and a B.A. in International Relations from Michigan State’s James Madison College. His interdisciplinary training spans political science, urban geography, African American studies, and international relations, and is reflected in his methodological range: content and discourse analysis, process tracing, and archival research.

At UCSB, he is a recipient of the Regent’s Junior Faculty Award, the Cohen-Jennings Mentorship Award, and the Faculty Career Development Award. He is currently a UC Humanities Research Institute Underrepresented Scholars Fellow.

Beyond the university, Rice served as Program Manager of the My Brother’s Keeper Mentoring Program in Detroit for over a decade.