I posted a summary on the 2005 hiring season in October 2006. This post summarizes the 2006-2007 season.
I can't post the full data at the moment - it's not very clean and might contain inaccuracies. I just wish the departmental websites were updated more often. It is really annoying that you cannot get a list of current faculty from the departmental website as late as late December (yes, this is the case in a few departments). However, I did my best (when I noticed that the website is probably out of date, I checked some other source, e.g. general university directory or a news item on "new faculty," the political theory newsletter, wiki, blogs, PS: Political Science & Politics). I am not sure when I will get around to posting full data (I think I will do a "usual" update in the winter). In any case, the exact numbers may not be fully accurate, and should be taken as an approximation only.
General summary
There were about 183 assistant professors hired in 2006-2007 season in PhD-granting political science departments; this seems to be quite a significant increase from the year before (I got 138 then). Of primary fields – about 70 (38%) were in American, 46 (25%) in Comparative, 38 (21%) in IR, 4 in Methods (I probably coded several who were "methods" hires as Americanists, though), and 25 (14%) in Theory. There was a significant increase in theory hires compared to 2005 (when less than ten theorists were hired in total). About twenty of the 2006 hires will officially start in 2008.
Here is a table of schools whose PhDs have been hired most in 2005 and 2006 together. This includes all hires, including those who were re-hired from some other tenure track job. I think comparisons year-by-year basis are not that useful; and my 2005 numbers turned out to be a little inaccurate anyway.
1. UC Berkeley (20)
2. Harvard (17)
3. Stanford (15)
4. UCLA (13)
5T. Duke, UC San Diego (12)
7. Michigan (11)
8T. Columbia, Yale (10)
10. Chicago (9)
11T. Indiana, North Carolina, WashU (8)
14T. Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Princeton, Texas A&M (7)
19. Rochester (6)
20T. Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Minnesota, Wisconsin (5).
Of the 183 new hires, 89 received their PhDs in 2007 or are still ABDs as of late 2007. Further 26 received their PhDs in 2006. About 50 had a tenure-track job before.
Top 30 hiring
I also took a quick look at hiring in “top 30” departments (I used the U.S. News and included Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Yale, UC San Diego, Duke, Chicago, Columbia, MIT, UCLA, Ohio State, UNC, Rochester, Wisconsin, WashU, Cornell, NYU, Minnesota, Northwestern, Michigan State, Texas A&M, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Texas-Austin, Washington, Emory, Rice, SUNY Stony Brook, UC Davis, Maryland and Pennsylvania).
In those departments, 68 (53 in 2005) assistant professor hires were made. Of those, 23 were in American, 22 in Comparative, 11 in IR, 2 in Methods, 10 in Theory. The rankings of schools who placed most graduates in "Top 30" in 2005 and 2006 combined:
1. UC Berkeley (13)
2. Stanford (12)
3. Harvard (10)
4. Michigan (8)
5. UCLA (7)
6. Rochester (6)
7T. Chicago, Princeton, UC San Diego (5)
10T. North Carolina, WashU, Yale (4)
13T. CalTech, Columbia, Duke, Oxford (3)
17T. Johns Hopkins, NYU, Stanford GSB (2)
One each: Arizona, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago (Psychology), Emory, Indiana, Maryland, MIT, MIT (Economics), Northwestern, Ohio State, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Rice, Texas A&M, UC Berkeley (Economics), UC Berkeley (History), UC Davis, Vanderbilt, Washington, Wisconsin
Of the 68 hires, 37 received their PhD in 2007 or are still ABDs, 10 received their PhDs in 2006. About 19 had tenure-track jobs before.
New PhD hiring
Finally, I took a look at “new PhD” hirings. As mentioned above, there were 89assistant professors hired who received their PhD in 2007 or are still ABDs (thus, the following information does not take into account those 2006-2007 hires who received their PhD in 2006 but were never on market before – there are a couple of those).
The departmental “rankings” by "new PhDs" placed in 2005 and 2006 combined (for 2005 hires, I simply used PhDs obtained in 2006 or later).
1T. Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego (10)
4. Harvard (8)
5T. UCLA, WashU, Yale (7)
8. Michigan (6)
9T. Columbia, Cornell, Duke (5)
Assistants “gone”
Finally, a quick look at departures and promotions. There were 96 assistant professors in PhD-granting political science departments in early 2007 who are no longer assistant professors in PhD-granting departments in late 2007. Of those, 58 became associate professors in their own department, 8 in some other department (including few in non-PhD granting departments), about 15 became assistants at non-PhD granting departments, with about 5 taking various visiting, administrative, or non-academic positions (I’m missing information on further five – but they almost certainly did not become associate professors).
