Where available, syllabi may be accessed by clicking on the NUMBER of the course. If the course number is not linked, please contact the instructor directly for a copy of the syllabus or check for the syllabus on the Courseworks website.
Please note:
1) "X"-denominated courses (ie: G6601x) are courses being offered in the fall semester. "Y"-denominated courses (ie: G6403y) are courses being offered in the spring semester.
2) Graduate courses in Political Science are numbered 4000 and above. However, 4000-level courses are mixed-level lectures, open to both undergraduates and graduate students.
3) Except where indicated, graduate courses are numbered as follows:
X2XX courses are in the subfield of American Politics
X4XX courses are in the subfield of Comparative Politics
X6XX courses are in the subfield of Political Theory
X8XX courses are in the subfield of International Relations
Methodology courses do not follow this numbering system.
4) With one or two exceptions, courses at the 6000-level are graduate "field surveys." These courses are intended for PhD students in Political Science. Other students should obtain the permission of the instructor before registering
5) 8000- and 9000-level courses are graduate colloquia and seminars; enrollment in these courses requires instructor permission.
6) If the course number begins with "8" (eg: 84145Y) rather than with a letter (eg: V1601, C3930, W4210, G4415, U8715, L9823, etc.), the course is cross-listed in another department. The second number will indicate the course level. Thus 84145Y is a 4000-level course cross-listed in the Philosophy Department, not a graduate colloquium (8000-level).
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American Politics
Robert Shapiro, Field Coordinator
Click
W4220X to view syllabus.
Mass Media and American Politics
Instructor: Nacos, Brigitte
Day(s): TR
Time: 610p-725p
Not
open to students who have taken BC3335. The most important aspects of
the mass media's roles in the American political process. The focus is
on the press itself (its workings, biases, effects, etc.) and on the
relationships between the media and the institutions and actors in
politics and government.
W4226X
American Politics and Social Welfare Policy
Instructor: Lieberman, Robert
Day(s): MW
Time: 910a-1025a
The politics and development of the American welfare
state. Study and analysis of the origins and growth of domestic social
programs that provide income support (welfare and Social Security),
employment opportunities, health care, and protection against poverty.
W4316X
American Presidency
Instructor: Pious, Richard
Day(s): MW
Time: 240p-355p
Prerequisite:
sophomore standing. The growth of presidential power, the creation and
use of the institutionalized presidency, presidential-congressional and
presidential-bureaucratic relationships, and the presidency and the
national security apparatus.
Click W4321Y to view syllabus.
The Constitutional Law of Presidential-Congressional Relations
Instructor: Pious, Richard
Day(s): MW
Time: 1100a-1215p
Examination
of the Constitutional issues involved in presidential-congressional
relations, including assertions of presidential emergency powers,
control of the administrative agencies, congressional investigations
and the independent counsel, and the Constitutional law of presidential
diplomatic and war powers.
G6210X
Theories & Debates in American Politics (Field Survey)
Instructor: Erikson, Robert & Lax, Jeffrey
Day(s): W
Time: 210p-400p
A survey of a broad range of important contemporary debates in the field of American politics.
G8219Y
Elections
Instructor: Erikson, Robert
Day(s): W
Time: 210p-400p
G8223X
Legislative Behavior and Institutionalism
Instructor: O'Halloran, Sharyn
Day(s): W
Time: 410p-600p
Instructor
permission required. Examination of the interactions between individual
incentives and political institutions in shaping policy. The course
presents an approach to the study of politics that emphasizes
individual incentives in an electoral system, examines how
reelection-minded legislators organize to solve collective dilemmas,
and focuses on the effects of these political institutions on policy
choice.
G8230Y
Judicial Institutions
Instructor: Lax, Jeffrey
Day(s): W
Time: 210p-400p
Instructor
permission required. The focus is on the study of law and courts as
political institutions and judges as political actors. Primary topics
will include judicial behavior and decision-making, the internal
politics of the Supreme Court, Politics within the judicial hierarchy,
politics between the judiciary and other branches, and the impact of
courts.
G8234Y Urban Politics
Instructor: Justin Phillips
Day(s): R
Time: 210p-400p
Click
G8236X-G8237Y to view syllabus.
Themes in American Political Development
Instructor: Katznelson, Ira
Day(s): R
Time: 410p-600p
Instructor
permission required. The colloquium audits work achieved under the
rubric of 'American Political Development' and looks ahead to
possibilities for future research. APD's concepts, premises,
substantive themes, and silences will be considered, including the
subfield's engagement with history and temporality, its attempts to
place the United States in comparative and international perspective,
and its approaches to ideas, institutions, regimes, interests, and
preferences.
Click
G8247Y to view syllabus.
Mass Mediated American and Global Politics
Instructor: Nacos, Brigitte
Day(s): R
Time: 1100a-1250p
Instructor
permission required. Readings and class discussions explore the
domestic and global news media at the beginning of the 21st
century as they relate to and impact on mass-mediated domestic and
international politics. The focus is on post-World War II and post-9/11
conditions and changes in terms of ownership, audience, technology,
organizational and individual values and imperatives, and, especially,
on the media's role during conflicts--in particular the ongoing "war on
terrorism."
G8902X-8902Y
Political Analysis
Instructor: Erikson, Robert
Day(s): T
Time: 210p-400p
Insructor permission required.
G92**Y
Qualitative & Interpretive Methods in Political Science
Instructor: Warren, Dorian
Day(s): M
Time: 410p-600p
This graduate-level seminar offers a broad introduction to what have been called "qualitative" and "interpretive" approaches to studying politics and conducting political science research: ethnography and participant-observation; case studies; field research, interviewing and archival work; historical institutionalism and comparative historical analysis; and interpretive modes of analysis.
G9208X
Legislatures in Historical and Comparative Perspective
Instructor: Wawro, Gregory
Day(s): W
Time: 1100a-1250p
G9620X
Political Economy Seminar
Instructor: Epstein, David
Day(s): M
Time: 410p-600p
Instructor permission required.
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Comparative Politics
Thomas Bernstein, Field Coordinator
MDES/POLS W4251X
Introduction to Political Thought in the Modern Middle East
Instructor: Scott Morrison
Day(s): MW
Time: 110p-225p
This graduate/undergraduate course does not presuppose a background in Middle East studies or political
science; it satisfies the Major Cultures Middle East (B list) requirement. This introductory course traces the intellectual history of contemporary Muslim politics, and secular political thinking in the Middle East/North Africa. It begins with Khayr al-Din, the prime minister of the Ottoman imperial regency of Tunis in the middle of the nineteenth century. The course proceeds in chronological order through such themes and epochs as: Islamic modernism, the controversy over the abolition/restoration of an Islamic Caliphate, feminism, Young Ottoman constitutionalism,Turkish and Arab (pan) nationalisms, social justice and the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, Third Worldism, anti-imperialism, Marxism, and revolutionary Shi’ism. The course explores the biographies, and engages with the writings, of Arab, Turkish and Iranian intellectuals likely to include Rifa’at al-Tahtawi, Jamal al-Din ‘al-Afghani’, Muhammad ‘Abduh, Namýk Kemal, Abdullah Cevdet, Qasim
Amin, Rashid Ridda, ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, Ziya Gökalp, Sayyid Qutb, Frantz Fanon, Constantine Zurayk, Mahdi ‘Amil, and -- in Iran --‘Ali Shariati and ‘Abdolkarim Soroush. The requirements for the course are two exams and a paper. (Graduate students may petition to write a longer paper in lieu of the final.)
Click
W4414Y to view syllabus.
Making Democracy Work
Instructor: Berman, Sheri
Day(s): TR
Time: 240p-355p
Prerequisites: One course in comparative politics. For the past thirty years a democratic revolution has been sweeping the globe. Beginning in the mid-1970s in Southern Europe, it has spread throughout Latin America, parts of East Asia and Africa, and the former Soviet bloc. In all, dozens of new democracies have emerged in the last three decades. This course will examine the problems they face and what, if anything, outsiders can do to help.
The course will begin with the literature on democratic consolidation, giving students an overview of the most important theories about what makes democracies work. We will then explore historical cases of intervention and debates about America’s role in promoting democracy. Finally, we will examine some of the research on democracy promotion, asking what can and should be done in this area in the future.
W4445X
Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
Instructor: El-Ghobashy, Mona
Day(s): TR
Time: 110p-225p
Why is this region so prone to conflict and violence? Taking a step back from the headlines, this course examines the political economy and history of the Arab states, Israel, Turkey, and Iran. The first third of the course surveys defining historical moments from the 18th century to 1948: the Ottoman Empire, European colonial penetration, the rise of nationalisms, and the formation of the Arab states and Israel. Part II examines the political economy of the region from 1948-1979: the geopolitics of oil, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Cold War on the structuring of state-society relations. The last third focuses on the rise of citizen demands, exemplified by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. What kinds of citizen actions have been resurfacing in response to incompetent and/or repressive states? Cases include Islamist movements, human rights movements, the peace movement in Israel, the student movement in Iran, and the rise of new media in the Arab world.
W4461Y
Latin American Politics
Instructor: O'Neill, Shannon
Day(s): TR
Time: 540p-655p
Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or 3502 or permission of instructor. Comparative theoretical and empirical analysis of political development and regime change in the region through close study of the interrelated nature of polity, society, and economy in selected cases.
W4471X
Chinese Politics
Instructor: Bernstein, Thomas
Day(s): TR
Time: 240p-355p
Selected aspects of contemporary Chinese politics, including the causes and character of the Chinese revolution, the transformation worked in Chinese society by the revolutionary government, political conflict, and the goals of government policies and the policies of carrying them out. (MC)
G4472X
Japanese Politics
Instructor: Curtis, Gerald
Day(s): R
Time: 210p-400p
Analysis of contemporary Japanese politics and government policymaking. Topics include patterns of political leadership and popular political participation, political party organization and behavior, public policy decision-making processes, and the domestic politics of foreign and defense policies.
W4491Y
Post-Soviet State & Markets
Instructor: Frye, Timothy
Day(s): TR
Time: 910a-10:25a
An introduction to the political and economic challenges facing the post-Soviet states.
W4496X
Contemporary African Politics
Instructor: Kasara, Kimuli
Day(s): TR
Time: 910a-1025a
G6403Y
Issues in Comparative Politics (Field Survey)
Instructor: Huber, John
Day(s): T
Time: 210p-400p
Instructor permission required. This seminar surveys major questions that motivate contemporary research in comparative politics. The course is specifically designed to introduce PhD students to the modern subfield, and to help prepare them for success on the comparative comprehensive exam. The course should also help students to develop skills that are necessary to become successful teachers and scholars in the comparative subfield.
G6465Y
Political Development in the Third World
Instructor: Oldenburg, Philip
Day(s): M
Time: 900a-1050a
The major issues of political development relevant to both policy and comparative analyses. Topics include ethnic, regional and class stratification, state bureaucracy, patronage, parties and the military, economic development and dependency, and the process of reform, revolution and democratization.
G8416y
Comparative Political Economy of Advanced Industrialized Countries
Instructor: Mares, Isabela
Day(s):
Time:
This seminar provides an introduction to the main theories of comparative political economy. The survey of these theories is organized as a progression from micro- to macro- level explanations. We begin by examining the sources of political cleavages over various economic policies and the formation of political coalitions. Next, we explore a range of theories positing that differences in the organization of interest groups lead to systematic differences in economic outcomes. In the remaining part of the course, we discuss theories examining the economic and political consequences of differences in partisanship, political institutions, regime types and the level of economic openness.
G8431X
European Political Development
Instructor: Berman, Sheri
Day(s): T
Time: 410p-600p
G8434Y
Latin American Politics in Comparative Perspective
Instructor: Kaufman, Robert
Day(s): F
Time: 1100a-1250pG8444X
G8436X
Comparative Public Policy: Latin America in Comparative Perspective
Instructor: Murillo, Victoria
Day(s): T
Time: 410p-600p
Click
G8471Y to view syllabus.
Chinese Politics in Comparative Perspective
Instructor: Bernstein, Thomas & Lu, Xiaobo
Day(s): T
Time: 610p-800p
Instructor permission required. A combined seminar-colloquium. The main theme will be governance and state-society relations in reform China. Half of the semester will be spent discussing assigned readings and the second half will consist of student-initiated sessions on specific issues. Students must have had W4471, Chinese politics, or its equivalent.
Click G8490Y to view syllabus.
States and Nationalism
Instructor: Birnbaum, Pierre
Day(s): R
Time: 900a-1050a
Instructor permission required. In this seminar we will take the state as an explaining variable and study its relation with different notions as nationalism, citizenship, social movements, antisemitism, multiculturalism and so on. Using the traditional opposition between strong and weak state, we will looks at its transformation and outline different processes of differentiation of the State leading to a kind of retreat, for instance, in the actual context of European unification.
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International Relations
Robert Legvold, Field Coordinator
W4808Y
Weapons, Strategy, and War
Instructor: Schilling, Warner
Day(s): MW
Time: 410p-525p
An examination of how the interrelationships among military technology, strategy, foreign policy, and the cultural ethos have shaped warfare from the introduction of gunpowder to the present; special attention to selected cases from World Wars I and II and the development of U.S. strategy for nuclear weapons.
W4869X
Korean Foreign Relations
Instructor: Kim, Samuel
Day(s): TR
Time: 240p-355p
The changing relations of the two Korean states, with major international actors; analysis of the foreign policies of the two states on issues of war and peace, political economy, human rights, science and technology, international law, international organization, and world order, with an emphasis on recent post Cold War developments. (MC)
W4882X
Foreign Policies of the Post-Soviet States
Instructor: Legvold, Robert
Day(s): T
Time: 410p-600p
Focuses on the emerging foreign policies of Russia, Ukraine, the Central Asian States, and other former Soviet republics. Deals with the sources of these policies, including the impact of the Soviet legacy. Examines the dynamic of relations among these states and with the outside world and weighs their likely impact on an evolving international system.
Click W4895X to view syllabus.
War, Peace, & Strategy
Instructor: Betts, Richard
Day(s): MW
Time: 1100a-1215p
Survey of the causes of war and peace, functions of military strategy, interaction of political ends and military means. Emphasis on 20th-century conflicts; nuclear deterrence; economic, technological, and moral aspects of strategy; crisis management; and institutional norms and mechanisms for promoting stability.
Click G6801X to view syllabus.
Theories of International Relations (Field Survey)
Instructor: Jervis, Robert
Day(s): M
Time: 210p-400p
Issues and problems in theory in international politics; systems theories and the current international system; the domestic sources of foreign policy and theories of decision-making; transnational forces, the balance of power, and alliances.
Click G6820X to view syllabus.
Theory of International Political Economy
Instructor: Pinto, Pablo
Day(s): T
Time: 410p-600p
Political aspects of international economic phenomena, including international monetary system, trade and investment, North-South relations, and East-West economic relations.
G8810Y
New Perspectives on the Cold War
Instructor: Legvold, Robert
Day(s): T
Time: 410p-600p
Instructor permission required. Recently released archives and memoirs provide the basis for a reevaluation of the origins, course, and end of the Cold War. Prevailing explanations of Soviet and American foreign policy and international interaction in light of the new materials.
G8815Y
Topics in International Relations Theory
Instructor: Gartzke, Erik
Day(s): T
Time: 410p-600p
Instructor permission required. Review of the current literature on war, peace and institutions with a focus on recent and evolving topics and controversies. Readings center on substantive questions, such as, "Why do states fight?" Emphasis is on debates about the answers to these questions, both as the basis for exploring existing answers and as an opportunity for students to identify their own research agendas.
G8819Y
International Institutions
Instructor: Gartzke, Erik
Day(s): M
Time: 410p-600p
G8826Y
Political Economy of Trade and Investment
Instructor: Pinto, Pablo
Day(s): W
Time: 900a-1050a
Instructor permission required. This course examines the politics of several major issues in international trade and investment. It explores why and how governments regulate the flow of goods and capital across national borders. The course is divided into four blocs that look at the distributive consequences of trade, the political economy of trade politics, the political economy of trade reform, and the political economy of foreign direct investment and multinational corporations, respectively. The course presumes some familiarity with international economics. Economic theory will help us identify the welfare and distributional implications of alternative policies. We will also make extensive use of the insights from the positive political economy tradition to analyze how political actors (voters, interest groups, political parties, and politicians) interact within political institutions to shape policy outcomes. Students are required to actively participate in weekly discussions, write two review papers during the semester, and submit an original research paper on one of the topics of the seminar at the end of the semester.
G8844X
Nationalism
Instructor: Snyder, Jack
Day(s): W
Time: 210-400p
Instructor permission required. Theory and history of nationalism and international conflict. Nationalism as a cause of conflict in contemporary world politics, especially in Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Role of the international community in promoting or containing nationalism.
G8870X
US Relations with East Asia
Instructor: Curtis, Gerald
Day(s): W
Time: 210p-400p
Instructor permission required. Examination of key developments in East Asian international relations and their implications for United States foreign policy. Students should have knowledge about at least one East Asian country (China, Japan, Korea and the countries in ASEAN). Admission to the course is with the permission of the instructor.
Click G8876Y to view syllabus.
US/Japan Relations - WWII to the Present
Instructor: Packard, George
Day(s): W
Time: 610p-800p
Instructor permission required. This course starts with a broad look at the history of US-Japan relations from the arrival of Commodore Perry in Tokyo Bay 150 years ago, and seeks answers to why the relationship has been marked by conflict and a major war. It then looks at how the relationship evolved as a result of the Pacific War, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's surrender, the US Occupation and the San Francisco Peace Treaty. What was the legacy of the Occupation? How did the alliance develop between these former rivals? What was the environment of Northeast Asia that drove the alliance? What were the costs and benefits of alliance to each nation? The course then analyzes the trade disputes and economic frictions of the 1970's and 1980's, looks into the rise of revisionism and American fears of Japan as a threat to its security. Finally the course covers events from the 1990's to the present, including the bursting of Japan's "bubble economy," the Clinton, Bush and Koizumi policies, "Japan-passing" in Washington, and the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Students are encouraged to take and defend controversial views on major events.
G9801X
Seminar in International Politics I
Instructor: Jervis, Robert
Day(s): T
Time: 210p-400p
Instructor permission required. Instruction in the design and execution of individual research projects on international politics. Class discussion on theories of decision making.
G9802Y
Seminar on International Politics II
Instructor: Waltz, Kenneth
Day(s): W
Time: 210p-400p
Instructor permission required.
