POLSCI 5000 Topics in Politics

The topics for this course will vary each semester.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5005 Topics in Politics

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5006 Independent Work

This course is an independent study taken under the supervision of an instructor in the department.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5009 Topics in Politics

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5020 Voting, Elections, and the American Electoral Process

In this course we will critically examine the extensive literature on voting and elections in the United States. The course will approach the subject from both a contemporary and historical perspective while emphasizing the importance of American electoral institutions in shaping the behavior of voters, candidates, parties, and the outcomes of elections. Readings and assignments will focus on topics such as: campaign dynamics, electoral institutions, voter turnout, representation, presidential and congressional elections, polling, political behavior, and party identification.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5026 Political Economy Workshop

This course provides students with exposure to recent work in the field of political economy (e.g., game-theoretical models of political phenomena, structural estimation of political phenomena, etc.), with a focus on the work of members of the Wash U political economy community (e.g., political science, economics, law, business). Importantly, graduate students will present their work in progress and provide regular feedback on the work of others.

Credit 1 unit.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5035 Political Data Science Lab

The Political Data Science Lab (PDSL) is a venue to foster and improve social science research. Nowadays, researchers and policy-makers use cutting-edge methods to answer important questions. However, the validity of their conclusions depends upon underlying theory, assumptions, design, and correct application of statistical methods. This course will provide students with the foundation necessary to conduct research by immersing the students in a vibrant and intellectually demanding environment. Thus, PDSL's workshops are a course designed to improve the research projects (at any stage) of our members. We strongly believe that persistent efforts will lead to successful outcomes such as many publications and successful dissertations from the members of PDSL.

Credit 1 unit.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5040 International Political Economy

It focuses on the key issues in international political economy, such as trade, monetary policy, foreign investment, migration, globalization, development, foreign aid, national security, and international institutions and cooperation.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5044 Political Theory Workshop

This course provides a forum for graduate students' development as professional researchers. It achieves this goal in two ways. First, the course provides a setting for students to share research-in-progress and to provide and receive feedback on that research. This both contributes to the development of viable, publishable research projects and affords im-portant experience presenting research. Second, the course facilitates the development of professional skills, such as critical reading and feedback, conference etiquette and norms, job market preparation, and exposure to both politics and political science beyond Washington University. Regular enrollment and attendance is expected and encouraged for all political theory graduate students, and open to graduate students in any field outside the department with an interest in political or social theory.

Credit 1 unit.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5046 Forced Displacement and the Politics of Seeking Refuge

In the last decade, the number of people who are forcibly displaced has more than doubled, and today the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 108.4 million people are forcibly displaced. Among this group, people face distinct legal, social, economic, and political challenges according to their status as refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and others who do not fit these categories. In this course, we will examine the political conditions that forcibly displace people across and within countries including persecution, conflict, and environmental disasters exacerbated by climate change as well as their experiences of seeking refuge. How do international, state, local, and non-governmental institutions cooperate to manage the needs of forcibly displaced persons? In what ways do political pressures create opportunities for and barriers to effective policies to address refugee issues? How do these structural challenges affect forcibly displaced persons, and what strategies do advocates use to improve the human rights of these populations? Throughout the course, we will bear in mind the interconnectedness of macro-level policy-making and micro-level issues that affect the daily lives of individual humans experiencing forced displacement.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC, SC Art: SSC EN: S

POLSCI 5053 State Politics

The course covers major works in the area of US State Politics. Each week covers a different motivation for why people study state politics, including institutional reasons, theoretical reasons, and data-driven reasons. Students are also expected to develop their own research plans.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5054 Political Borders, Domestic Politics and Patterns of Conflict and Cooperation

Borders are ubiquitous in politics and economics. International borders are what make relations among states international, while sub-state administrative borders are increasingly recognized as central to understanding many aspects of domestic politics. For instance, the status and key characteristics of borders are known to have significant effect on the likelihood and character of militarized conflict among states, the volume of international trade and foreign direct investment, and the propensity for civil conflicts to become transnational. Furthermore, informal political borders, such as states' internal ethnic divisions, have also been found to profoundly influence economic patterns, patterns of political competition, as well as the propensity for states to experience political violence and civil conflict. Despite the ubiquity of borders and their widely recognized importance to politics, there has traditionally been little research directly addressing how and why they shape individual level behavior. Recently, this has changed, as scholars across several literatures in the subfields of international relations, comparative politics and political economy have begun to put greater theoretical and empirical focus on borders and their role in organizing the political and economic behavior of individuals and governments. This course provides a survey of the role of borders in political and economics, drawing from a diverse set of contemporary literatures in political science and economics.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5057 Interest Groups & Social Movements

The formation, evolution and political influence of organized interests and social movements in the US.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5063 Causal Inference

The course serves as both an introduction for the mechanisms by which political scientists draw causal inferences using quantitative data as well as an introduction for the basic statistical tools necessary for quantitative research in the social sciences. There are three main goals of this course: to teach students to read, understand and criticize quantitative analysis in published and unpublished work, to provide them with the skills necessary to begin conducting their own analyses, and to lay the foundations for quantitative methods. We will cover the fundamentals of how political scientists are able to draw causal inferences. To do so, we will review basic probability and statistics. We will then discuss the types of inferences possible with different data-generating processes, including laboratory experiments, randomized field experiments, and observational data. There are no prerequisites for this class beyond approaching the material with an open and curious mind. Much of the material in this course is technical and a successful student in this course will spend a significant amount of time outside of class working through problem sets and becoming familiar with the necessary statistical software.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5064 Formal Models of Conflict

This course is intended for advanced graduate students who are interested in the formal models of conflict. This course may be of particular interest to students interested in international relations. The goal of this course is to provide hands-on experience for students with interest in modeling various substantive ideas by exposing the advantages and limitations of mathematical formalization. To accomplish this, students will (i) deeply engage with selected readings, (ii) identify the contributions of their authors, and (iii) find ways to improve the research or extend the insights.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5070 Global Justice

This course examines contemporary debates and controversies regarding global justice. Seminar discussions will be arranged around significant issues in the current literature. for example: What (if anything) do we owe to the distantly needy? Do we have special obligations to our compatriots? Do political borders have normative significance? And so on. This course will be of interest not only to political theorists, but also students in other fields interested in social justice or international relations generally.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, SSC Art: SSC EN: S

POLSCI 5074 Comparative Politics Research Workshop

This course provides a forum for graduate students' development as professional researchers. It achieves this goal in three ways. First, students will present research in progress, receiving feedback on papers they are preparing for publication. This helps improve the quality of their work, and gives them experience presenting and receiving constructive criticism on their research. Second, students will also provide feedback on other students' work, helping them practice skills such as critical reading, crafting constructive feedback, and gaining exposure to different substantive topics and research methods in the subfield of comparative politics. Third, the course will help students build networks of collaboration in the department with other graduate students, faculty, and external scholars who may occasionally participate in some sessions, presenting their own in-progress work. Regular enrollment and attendance is expected for comparative politics graduate students and encouraged for other graduate students (including from other departments) with a significant interest in comparative politics.

Credit 1 unit.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5075 International Relations Workshop

This course provides graduate students with key professional development skills on their path to becoming professional researchers and academics. The course accomplishes this goal in three ways. First, students will present research in progress week to week, receiving feedback on papers they are submitting for publication. This helps improve the quality of their work and gives them experience presenting and receiving constructive criticism on their work. Second, students will also provide feedback on other students' work, helping them practice skills such as critical reading, crafting constructive feedback, and gaining exposure to different substantive topics and research methods in the subfield of international relations. Third, the course will help students build networks of collaboration in the department with other graduate students, WUSTL faculty, and external faculty who will also participate in some sessions, presenting their own in-progress work for students. Regular enrollment and attendance is expected for all international relations graduate students in the department and is open to those outside the department who have significant interests in international relations.

Credit 1 unit.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5080 Theories of Individual and Collective Choice I

An introduction to Rational Choices Theory. Topics will include the following: the foundations of Rational Choice Theory, Spatial Theory of Electoral Competition, Cooperative Game Theory, and General Equilibrium Theory. Prerequisite: PolSci 5052, Mathematical Modeling in Political Science (or equivalent).

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5094 Mathematical Modeling in Political Science

This course is designed to provide mathematical tools useful for the rest of the statistical methods sequence, as well as for other courses in formal theory or mathematical modeling. Throughout the course, the mathematical tools are motivated by applications to the general problem of how politics can be modeled for purposes of statistical analysis, deductive reasoning, or conceptual theorizing. This motivation is accomplished by means of a consistent focus on such processes as individual decision making, the representation of issues, statistical phenomena, and phenomena of change over time. The course assumes a sufficient background in elementary algebra, logic, functions, and graphs; remedial work in these areas will be offered through a review course during the last week or two of summer. Mathematical topics covered include: sets and relations; probability; differential calculus and optimization; difference equations; and linear algebra.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5101 Fascism and the Far Right in Europe

Across Europe and beyond, parties on the far right have become a substantial force in contemporary politics. Some analysts have raised questions about these parties' ties to fascism, as characterized regimes such as Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, and Hitler's Germany. How do today's far right actors compare to those of the past, and what can we learn from the comparison of the present moment to history? In this class, we will study both the extreme and radical right in Europe over time through the lens of three cases: Italy, Spain, and Germany. We will analyze both the conditions for popular support (demand) and political opportunity structures (supply) that allow(ed) far right actors to gain and maintain authority. We will also assess the strategies of these actors through themes of race and migration, security and foreign policy, gender, and religion. As we develop this discussion, you will conduct further research into a single topic that interests you, in the course cases or another case of your choice. Since an essential element of far right politics is the rejection of either the liberal elements of democracy (e.g. minority rights) or the principles of democracy entirely (including the electoral process), you will present your research through a creative medium aimed at a public audience, with the goal of promoting civic engagement.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC EN: S

POLSCI 5103 Theories of Individual and Collective Choice II

This course provides an introduction to noncooperative game theory and its application within political science. In-depth coverage of the course will include normal- and extensive- form games, Nash equilibrium and its refinements, games of incomplete information, and Bayesian equilibrium and its refinements. To the degree that time permits, students will be presented introductory material on topics such as epistemological foundations, mechanism design, information aggregation, and specific applied models within political science.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5105 Seminar in Positive Political Theory

This course will provide you with an introduction to the field of positive political theory, focusing primarily on social choice theory, mechanism design, and various proof techniques. The topics we cover will include preference aggregation, rationalizable choice, tournaments, sophisticated voting, the revelation principle, and ultimately, the implicit trade-offs made by game theoretic versus social choice theoretic approaches to modeling.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5110 Seminar in Political Theory: Game Theory and Politics

This seminar is designed as an eclectic topics course in the application of broadly game theoretic models to political science. Topics are chosen both to build skills not covered in Game Theory I and II (505-506) and to introduce areas of application of mutual interest. One likely applications topic isconstitutional stability and democratic backsliding. Prerequisites: L32 505

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5120 Research Seminar in Formal Political Theory

Seminar will discuss and develop individual students' formal theory projects plus necessary background material. Precise content based on student projects.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5125 International Interventions in Fragile Settings

Civil wars are the prevailing political crises of our time. The international community devotes considerable financial and human resources to preventing civil wars from breaking out and stopping them once they do. Do such attempts succeed? In this course, we examine international efforts to create sustainable peace after civil wars from a variety of perspectives. Drawing upon theoretical and empirical analyses in political science, we investigate the effectiveness of peacekeeping troops deployed to keep warring parties from fighting as well as statebuilding initiatives that attempt to construct or reconstruct domestic institutions in a postconflict state. We also consider the spatial challenges facing peacekeeping operations, which may prevent certain operations from succeeding locally where they have succeeded nationally. Finally, we examine different types of peacekeepers, including the United Nations's extensive network of peacekeeping operations around the globe.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5130 History of Political Thought I: Justice, Virtue, and the Soul

This course offers a critical introduction to the main issues and debates in western political theory, including but not limited to the topics of justice, legitimacy, equality, democracy, liberty, sovereignty, and the role of history in the political and social world. This course is designed to be the first in a three-semester sequence on the history of political thought, and students are encouraged, but not required, to take the courses in chronological sequence. The first semester begins with ancient Greek political thought, and follows its development up to the early 16th century.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S UColl: ML

POLSCI 5133 History of Political Thought II: Legitimacy, Equality and the Social Contract

Government is often justified as legitimate on the grounds that it is based on the consent of the governed. In History of Political Thought II, Legitimacy, Equality, and the Social Contract, we examine the origins of this view, focusing our attention on canonical works in the social contract tradition, by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), David Hume (1711-1776), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). This course is the second in a three-semester sequence on the history of political thought. Students are encouraged but not required to take all three courses. Prerequisite: One previous course in political theory or political philosophy.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S

POLSCI 5134 History of Political Thought III: Liberty, Democracy, and Revolution

How, if at all, should the political institutions of the modern state express and secure the liberty and equality of citizens? What is the political significance of private property? Is world history to be understood as progress towards one best form of government - capitalist democracy, perhaps, or communism? What forces drive history? We shall address these and other timeless political questions through close reading and rigorous analysis of classic texts in the history of Western political thought. Authors to be studied will include Kant, Hegel, Marx, Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and Nietzsche. Prerequisite: one previous course in political theory or political philosophy. The course is designed to be the third in a three-semester sequence on the history of political thought, and students are encouraged but not required to take the courses in chronological sequence.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S

POLSCI 5140 Approaches to Comparative Politics

Problems of theory construction and testing in a comparative framework. Both underdeveloped and industrial societies are discussed. Primary ephasis placed on increasing student's abilities to criticize and develop theoretical ideas.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5145 The Distributive Politics of Electoral Rules

Around the world, governments make decisions about how to allocate goods and services to their citizens. These decisions can be influenced by theelectoral prospects of the politician/party in power. In this class, we aim to study politicians' incentives to target voters and how different electoral rules shape these incentives.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5161 Senior Seminar: Religion, Politics, and Community

Religion is a powerful social, economic, and political force across the globe. Its formal authorities and informal influences have changed over time and across space and traditions. Yet even where regular religious practice has become less common, religion remains a means of constructing communities, be it a diaspora, a unique nation within a state, or state-wide national identity or nationalism. Religion intersects with race, gender, and other important social identities, and it overlaps with organized political power from the grassroots to the government. Human relationships with the divine have influenced everyday norms and values, have marked key moments in our life cycle, and have provided material and social psychological resources for communities. In this course, we will examine the political relationships between religion and community from a variety of social scientific perspectives. As a core part of this inquiry, you will conduct an original research paper on a topic of your choice relating to religion, politics, and community. We will work through each step of the scientific method over the course of the semester-using religion and community as a lens and set of thematic examples-and hold guided workshops to facilitate your research process. Prereq: L32 263 OR L32 363 OR department approved equivalent

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC EN: S

POLSCI 5165 Political Participation: State and Local Politics

This course investigates variation in political behavior in the context of state and local politics. We often conceptualize local political participation as engagement within a managerial democracy, wherein partisanship plays a smaller role than local needs and efficient management of resources. Who participates in a managerial democracy and why? This course evaluates participation in local politics, political reform, and engagement with local elected officials. This is a course that focuses on writing, with the aim of producing research at the frontier of the field.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5190 Seminar in Comparative Politics:

In this course we will survey the voluminous literature on democratization and issues that facilitate or hamper the democratization process. We will begin with a discussion of definitions and examples of democracy. We will then examine in more detail theories about transitions to democracy (complete and incomplete) and consider illustrative examples. Finally, we will study the role of economic and institutional political development in the democratization process, and we will consider the extent to which social and political conflict are inevitable in transitions to democracy.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5195 Seminar in Comparative Politics: European Politics

This course is designed to provide Ph.D. students with a theoretical and substantive background in the study of Europe by political scientist. The course is organized around central research questions that pertain to politics in Europe, many of which are also relevant for the study of advanced industrial democracies. The course is NOT a descriptive survey of current political events and circumstances in particular nations of Europe. However, the readings will provide substantive context to the guiding theoretical and conceptual issues.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5205 Seminar in Comparative Politics: Comparative Judicial Politics

The performance of liberal democracies depends on large part on the judiciary, particulary Constitutional Courts. Courts can protect individual rights, define the powers of the legislative executive branches, and ensure the rule of law governs social and economic life. But courts typically enjoy neither the purse nor the sword and this often depend on other government agencies to enforce their decisions. In other words, the judicial independence necessary for courts to exert the salutary effects on democratic governance is often in question. This course examines these issues from a comparative perspective. In addition to the broad scholarly attention to these issues in the context of U.S. politics, a growing literature explores the interplay between courts, government, and society as a more general problem affecting democracies around the world. Based on this broad literature, we will discuss topics ranging from judicial legitimacy and compliance, judicial policy-making, the interaction between constitutional law and politics, separation of powers, and judicial norms and rules.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5210 American Political Institutions

This course provides an overview of the scholarly work on American political institutions. Readings include the classic literature on political behavior, interest groups, Congress, the Executive, and the Court.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5220 Seminar in American Politics

The seminar provides an overview of the major theories and empirical studies of legislative institutions and behavior. The seminar focuses on the U.S. Congress. Much of the theory and methods have carried over to the study of other parliaments, but the literature on other parliaments is reserved for other seminars.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5230 Topics in American Politics:

This seminar has two central goals: (1) to introduce students to the scholarly literature regarding judicial politics, especially regarding the U.S. Supreme Court, and in so doing discuss some of the most important scholarly debates in the field; and (2) to emphasize the importance of sound theoretical arguments, careful research designs, and compelling empirical results. This course is taught from a perspective that emphasizes the study of courts is closely connected to the theoretical and empirical traditions in American Politics. As such, we will focus on the social scientific study of judicial process and politics, analyzing the substantive, theoretical, and methodological developments in the field. We will concentrate primarily on contemporary readings but will read enough older literature to be cognizant of the field's development.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5236 Seminar in American Politics

This course will address American politics, using race as the focal point. How does race impact our conception of the American political project, as both researchers of it, and participants in it? For example, how does the presence of large numbers of African Americans in the South, affect the structure of southern political parties? Among the topics to be discussed are citizenship, public policy, political behavior, political development, and public opinion. Prerequisites: graduate students only.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5255 Executive Branch Politics: Bureaucracy and the President

Article II of the Constitution says that the executive power will be vested in the office of the president. The Constitution says little about subordinate officers, but the bureaucracy has grown and become the repository of technical expertise. In recent years, the literature on bureaucracy and the president has been granted in models of information asymmetry, agency, delegation, and separation of powers. The course will also examine the historical development of the executive, its relations with other branches, and the internal politics of staffing, budgets, and organizational structure. Prerequisites: Math Modeling

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5265 Comparative Party Politics

In this seminar we will review some of the concepts and theories employed in the comparative study of political parties and party systems. Most of the canonical literature has been developed with an eye to the political experience of advanced industrial democracies, but has been extended more recently into the study of inchoate democracies, where the programmatic character of political parties cannot necessarily be taken for granted. We will focus on the constitutional and societal determinants, and on the political and economic consequences, of different party system arrangements, centering mostly on European and Latin American politics.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5280 American Constitutional Development

The development of American understandings of the Constitution, from the Framing era to the present. The course focuses on important changes in constitutional meaning and application; the processes by which such change occurs; and the role of constitutional issues in American political argument and political strategy. In doing so, it develops ideas about constitutional intrepretation, constitutional theory, and political argument. This course is intended primarily to supplement the training of graduate students specializing in associated fields such as judicial politics and American political institutions.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5305 Topics in Politics: Theories of Social Justice

This course is intended primarily for sophomores and juniors. The topic of this course varies by semester, dependent on faculty and student interests.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SSC Art: SSC BU: ETH, HUM EN: S

POLSCI 5310 Law and Society

This seminar is designed as a survey of important topics within the broad area of Law and Society. Areas to be examined in the seminar include courts and public policy making; civil liberties and political tolerance; criminal justice; the legal pofession; juries; legitimacy adn compliance with law; law and social change; procedural justice; and comparative law. The seminar will focus on understanding, synthesizing and evaluation the broad range of empirical research conducted under the rubric law and society.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5320 The Politics of Technology and the Technology of Politics

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5325 Topics in Political Science

This course is intended primarily for sophomores and juniors. The topic of this course varies by semester, dependent on faculty and student interests.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S

POLSCI 5330 African American Politics

One of the distinguishing features of American government is its relationship with its African American citizenry. In response to the peculiar nature of the American political project as it relates to African Americans, African Americans have created a form of political engagement that is to a certain extent sui generis. The goal of this course is to familiarize students with black politics in the contemporary United States.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5340 Democracy, Responsiveness, and Accountability

This course focuses on the question: To whom - what interests, whose demands - do elected politicians respond when making policy? In the last 30 years, the number of countries that select their rulers through competitive elections has increased sharply. The performance of many of these regimes, however, raises serious doubts about the extent to which elections guarantee a close correspondence between citizen preferences and policy outputs. The class explores the practical implications of ideals like responsiveness and accountability for elected officials, and how these operate in conjunction with the separation of powers, independent judiciaries, political party discipline, pressure from international actors, as well as more base incentives, like personal ambition and corruption.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5355 Measurement and Latent Trait Models

This class is an advanced quantitative methods course in which we will derive, fit, and analyze latent variable models commonly used in social science research. The ultimate goal is to give students the requisite skills and knowledge to apply these models in their own research. The course will focus on building foundational skills needed to engage contemporary measurement models and estimation techniques. In addition, the course will survey prominent and promising models in the political science, statistics, and psychology literatures.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5360 Research Design

This course is designed to provide students with analytical skills for making and evaluating arguments and evidence about social phenomena, particularly in political science. Put differently, the course will help students discriminate between good and bad arguments.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5370 Political Psychology

Political pyschology is a rapidly growing field of research located at the intersection of psychology and political science. Broadly, political psychology helps us understand how individuals think and feel about politics, and how these psychological factors shape political behavior. This course is designed to examine the major areas of research on how psychological factors explain important political phenomena, such as political, vote choice, polarization, partisanship, media consumption, political knowledge, political communication, and policy preferences. This course will draw heavily on research in American politics, but will extend to research across the subfields. Students will design and conduct independent research and engage in assignments geared toward professional development.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5375 Democratization

This course offers an introduction to the extensive literature on democratization. It includes a combination of classic works on democratization as well as more contemporary work. It also addresses both domestic and international influences on the cause of democratization, as well as its effects.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5390 Globalization and Democracy

Globalization poses challenges to democratic institutions. Democracy aims to align citizens' preferences and public policy through the use of elections. But many facets of globalization, for example, immigration, environmental pollution, and international finance, cannot be governed solely by domestic policy decisions within a single democracy. This raises the questions of how successful democratic systems are in realizing effective governance and meaningful electoral accountability. In this research-orientated course we address this question in the context of economic and environmental policy, two important and related areas of policymaking in which globalization plays a crucial role. The course consists of weekly lectures and tutorials. It is designed for students who share an interest in international relations, political economy, and electoral behavior.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5395 American Political Parties

This seminar will introduce students to core literature on political parties with a strong bias towards recent research.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC EN: S

POLSCI 5400 Research in Political Science

Research

Credit 6 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5405 Research in Political Science

This course is open only to Ph.D. candidates who have passed their qualifying examinations and is to be under the supervision of an instructor of the department.

Credit 6 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5410 Political Violence

This course studies the ways non-state groups use violence in pursuit of political goals. During the semester, we will engage with contemporary research on political violence, including civil war, ethnic conflict, terrorism and communal riots. The goal of the course is to introduce students to major questions related to the study of political violence. What explains the onset of violence? Why do individuals choose to join violent movements? Is non-violent protest more effective than the use of violent tactics? During the semester, we will read a large volume of within-country and cross-national quantitative research on political violence. We will examine several cases in detail, including ethnic riots in India, Rwandan genocide, and Kurdish conflict in Turkey.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5415 Readings in Political Science

Credit 6 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5420 The Politics of Electoral Systems

We will look at the features of electoral systems that impose incentives for interparty and intraparty politics. Those features include ballot access, ballot type, the number and level at which votes are cast, the level to which votes pool, distritc magnitude, seat allocation formulas, and legal thresholds. A subset of these creative incentives for the relationships between parties include their number, relative size, and location in the policy space (interparty politics). An overlapping subsetof these create incentives for the relationships whithin parties, including between leaders and backbenchers and between representatives and constituents (intraparty politics). We will examine the existing literature and do some original researc of our own.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5425 Readings in Political Science

This course is readings in political science taken under the direction of an instructor in the department.

Credit 6 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5430 Longitudinal and Event History Models for the Social and Political Sciences

This course will cover the statistical concepts and techniques that are used to model social and political events over time, including basic time-series and event history (survival) data. Such data routinely occurs in both the social sciences and public health sciences. Lectures will introduce: second order stationary time series, autoregressive structures, spectrum and linear filtering theory, autocorrelation consistent (HAC) variance estimation, survival functions, hazard rates, types of censoring and truncation. Modes of inference for regression models will be provided. All applied work will be in the R software environment for statistical computing and graphics. Students will be able to identify and classify data problems in longitudinal analysis, define the appropriate function accounting for time as well as summarize and interpret analyses of such data using various estimators. In addition, participants will able to formulate research questions related to longitudinal data and the appropriate associated regression models or other approach.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5435 Seminar in Political Economy

This research seminar will introduce the student to recent work on the political economy of democracy. We shall start with a historical account of the development of democratic institutions in Britain and the United States, and then continue with recent work on modeling elections. We shall compare elections in countries that make use of proportional electoral systems, such as Israel, with those like the United States and Britain that are highly majoritarian. Finally we shall discuss the forces of democratization and globalization. The required work for the seminar is a research paper approximately 20pp (double spaced) in length.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC Art: SSC EN: S

POLSCI 5440 Comparative Political Economy

This seminar will introduce the student to aspects of social choice theory, applied to themes to do with the economic origins of democracy, democratization and the stability of social orders. We shall read and discuss a number of recent books: Acemoglu and Robinson on Economic Origins; North, Weingast and Wallis on Violence and Social Order; Przeworski on Democracy and Development; Ferguson on Money; Collier on Wars Guns and Votes. If time permits I also hope to discuss recent work by Stern on the Economics of Climate Change. Students will be expected to work on two short research paper, either empirically or theoretically based, and make a presentation of their work near the end of the semester.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC Art: SSC EN: S

POLSCI 5516 Field Experiments in Comparative Politics

This seminar course introduces students to field experiments as a tool to shed light on important questions in the field of comparative politics. Each session, students will learn about an aspect of experimental design with an emphasis on challenges that can arise when taking experimental designs to the field. The course will draw on cutting-edge experimental work on the comparative politics of developing countries to illustrate these concepts. Every week, students will critically engage with the research design and findings of experimental papers on a particular substantive topic. The goal of the course is to enable students to design their own experiments and practically implement them in the field.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5545 American Politics Workshop

The American Politics Workshop will be a one-credit, repeatable graduate course for students interested in American politics. Its goal is the development of professional researchers in American politics. The workshop will provide a forum for graduate students to present and receive feedback on written work; it will also involve professionalization activities that are directly aimed at helping students thrive as researchers as they proceed through the graduate program.

Credit 1 unit.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5561 Seminar in Security and Conflict

This course serves as a field seminar for the conflict and security sub-field of International Relations. We cover the theories and approaches central to understanding cutting-edge research in conflict and security, with a focus on the sort of work that is being published in top journals. We will cover topics such as the sources and (sometimes long-term) consequences of interstate conflict and war, key theories and empirical approaches in the fast growing field of civil conflict, as well as topics at the intersection of security and international political economy. This course is intended to serve as a field seminar for students interested in core topics in conflict and security.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

POLSCI 5571 Gender and Politics

A survey of central topics in gender and politics, including issues such as women's and men's representation in government, women as voters and candidates in political elections, gender and political participation in political parties and social movements, and gender and policy representation.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5580 Seminar in Public Policy/Political Economy:

This course will survey the international political economy (IPE) literature as a foundation for analyzing the political economy of financial crises. The recent backlash against globalization provoked by populist movements in advanced economies is not a new phenomenon. Populist movements arose following the Long Depression in the late 19th century and the Great Depression in the 20th century, which provide historical parallels for the causes and responses to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Utilizing historical, analytical, and theoretical literature, we will explore the IPE field with the intention of understanding the causes and distributional effects of financial crises. Students will submit a final term paper that analyzes the political ramifications (broadly defined) of a financial crisis of their choosing.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5595 American Political Behavior

This will be a graduate field seminar in American political behavior.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5626 Applied Statistical Programming

Statistical computing is a quickly changing field. Standard techniques of today would have been difficult to execute fifteen years ago and impossible in the early 1990s. Rapid improvements i computing power have been accompanied by swift changes in standard statistical methods. In just the last decade, techniques ranging from Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation, randomization inference, network analysis, and non-parametric matching have moved from being novel, advanced applications to commonplace across the social sciences. This class is designed to achieve two broad objectives. More narrowly, it aims to guide students as they learn the specifics of the R programming language, a powerful statistical computing environment widely used in the fields of political science, network analysis, machine learning, and statistics. Achieving this goal will require students to learn commands, best practices, and work-arounds specific to the sometimes idiosyncratic R language.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5690 Quantitative Political Methodology I

This is a first course in political methodology. The primary topic will be the linear regression model, in both scalar and matrix form. The course will cover estimation, inference, specification, diagnostic tools, data management, and statistical computation.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5695 Quantitative Political Methodology II

This is a second course in political methodology covering advanced methods of statistical analysis for political and other social scientists. Covers maximum likelihood estimation for various cross-sectional, time series, and measurement models.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5720 Topics in Quantitative Political Methodology: Computational Social Science

Over the last decade, the scale and scope of data available to social scientists has exploded. In this course, students learn computational methods for the analysis of new types of data, including networks, text, audio, images, and videos. We begin with mechanistic approaches to supervised and unsupervised learning, then move to statistical inference with probabilistic interpretations, paying particular attention to the use and misuse of these models in the social sciences. In addition to problem sets, students will collect and analyze novel data to be presented in a department poster session at the end of the semester.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5725 Multilevel Models in Quantitative Research

This course covers statistical model development with explicitly defined hierarchies. Such multilevel specifications allow researchers to account for different structures in the data and provide for the modeling of variation between defined groups. The course begins with simple nested linear models and proceeds on to non-nested models, multilevel models with dichotomous outcomes, and multilevel generalized linear models. In each case, a Bayesian perspective on inference and computation is featured. The focus on the course will be practical steps for specifying, fitting, and checking multilevel models with much time spent on the details of computation in the R and Bugs environments. PREREQ: Math 2200, Math 3200, Poli Sci 581, or equivalent.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5735 Research Workshop I

The objective of this course is to provide a forum in which students propose, develop, and complete reserach projects that are marketable to a broad political science audience, and to help students refine their analytical and writing skills. The course is targeted toward students in their 3rd year. The specific goals for each student include (a) finalizing their 3rd year paper and preparing it for submission to a journal, and (b) developing a first draft of their dissertation prospectus. Participation is an essential component of the seminar. Students are expected to (1) submit and/or present their work based on a schedule that is finalized at the start of the semester, and (2) give written feedback and engage in discussion of the work submitted by their peers every week.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5736 Research Workshop II

The objective of this course is to provide a forum in which students propose, develop, and complete research projects that are marketable to a broad political science audience, and to help students refine their analytical and writing skills. The specific goal of the course is for each student to develop a first draft of his/her dissertation prospectus and prepare it for submission to his/her dissertation committee. Participation is an essential component of the seminar. Students are expected to (1) submit and/or present their work based on a schedule that is finalized at the start of the semester, and (2) give written feedback and engage in discussion of the work submitted by their peers every week. Prerequisite: L32 590

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

POLSCI 5740 Democratization in the United States

To what extent has the United States fulfilled the promise of democracy throughout its history? This course will explore the ways that voting rights, political institutions, and public opinion have combined to limit or extend popular government in the United States. Particular focus will be given to changes in voting rights throughout U.S. history. Why have certain groups been denied or extended the franchise? What are the consequences of altering the franchise for lawmaking and public policy? Reading will be both theoretical and empirical, with specific attention paid to limits on the franchise in the early American republic, fluctuations in African-American suffrage, the extension of the right to vote to women, the disenfranchisement of those convicted of felonies, and concerns about access to voting and registration for disadvantaged groups in recent years. Additional areas of focus will include the role of political parties in American democracy, access to office-holding, the role of the media in facilitating democratic governances, the impact of protest and other non-voting methods of democratic political participation, the importance of legislative and electoral institutions for representation, and democratic backsliding. Most readings will focus on the United States, with occasional readings about other countries used to highlight the ways that democratization in the United States is and is not unique in comparative perspective.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5742 Survey Research Practicum

A research practicum in designing surveys and survey experiments. Topics include sampling, survey modes, questionnaire design, ethics and the Institutional Review Board, and analyzing survey data.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5745 Public Opinion

This course explores the processes by which citizens form and change their opinions. It will cover the methodological tools scholars use to measure opinions, especially surveys and experiments. Topics include political knowledge, mass communication, partisanship, ideology, policy issues, institutional outcomes, social networks and context.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5750 Territory and Group Conflict

Territorial conflicts are among the most contentious and difficult to resolve in international politics. Territorial conflict is also found to be one of the most frequent causes of intrastate violence and civil war onset. At a theoretical level, territory is central to almost any aspect of international relations, as it is what physically defines states, where any kind of violent conflict takes place, and influences the character of violent conflict in important ways. A large empirical literature convincingly shows that territory is a key determinant of international conflict. However, much remains unexplored both theoretically and empirically. In this course, we explore the role that territory plays in a wide variety of contexts. We motivate the course by noting that although territory has been shown to be empirically central to the majority of violent disputes, explanations for why this is the case lag behind the evidence. Subsequently, we study the role territory plays in state-making, international conflict, the settlement of disputes, international trade, international investment, the effectiveness of treaties, ethnic identity, and civil wars, among others. Week by week we pay particular attention to the central theoretical role territory plays in international relations. We will put particular emphasis on thinking about how territory relates to bargaining models of conflict.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5755 Governance, Accountability, and Corruption

In this class, we will explore the literature on political accountability, governance and corruption. Topics will include: public sector professionalization, measuring corruption in OECD and low-income settings, electoral accountability and government responsiveness, foreign aid and good governance. The course will provide an opportunity to explore relevant data (including replication data) with the aim to develop new research papers.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 5831 Computational Social Science

Over the last decade, the scale and scope of data available to social scientists has exploded. In this course, students learn computational methods for the analysis of new types of data, including networks, text, audio, images, and videos. We begin with mechanistic approaches to supervised and unsupervised learning, then move to statistical inference with probabilistic interpretations, paying particular attention to the use and misuse of these models in the social sciences. In addition to problem sets, students will collect and analyze novel data to be presented in a department poster session at the end of the semester.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

POLSCI 5913 Civil War

Civil wars have become the prevailing political crises of our times. This course will introduce students to the study of intrastate conflict in political science, overviewing both classics as well as more recent research in the field. We will study the sources of violence within states; debates about the role of identity in civil wars; the dynamics of conflict during wars; international intervention and peacekeeping; and the impact of climate change. The readings in the course use a mix of qualitative, advanced quantitative, experimental, and formal methods. Regions covered include (but are not limited to) Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Credit 3 units.

POLSCI 6000 Master's Continuing Student Status

Credit 0 units.

POLSCI 6996 Political Science Elective (GRAD)

Credit 0 units. EN: S

POLSCI 8000 Doctoral Continuing Student Status

Credit 0 units.

POLSCI 8010 Doctoral Nonresident

Credit 0 units.