91Â鶹¾«Æ·

POL 220 - Introduction to Global Politics

This course surveys major topics and theoretical and empirical contributions in comparative politics. It addresses such issues as methodology, modernization and economic development, democracy and authoritarianism, political parties, participation, representation, social movements, accountability, institutions of government, ethnic violence, revolutions, and civil wars.

POL 230 - Introduction to Political Economy

This course offers an introduction to the field of political economy, the study of how political power shapes economic outcomes and how economic power influences politics. Students will learn the key conceptual foundations of political economy as well as read major works in comparative political economy (CPE) and international political economy (IPE). Key topics include how economic interests are organized, how political institutions shape economic outcomes, how states respond to globalization, and how structures of the international system shape economic outcomes for individual states. Throughout, students will grapple with rich empirical work and debate the merits of various approaches to the study of political economy. This is a survey course and accessible to all majors and does not require prior knowledge of economics or politics.

POL 240 - Introduction to International Relations

This course introduces the theoretical study of international relations, with a focus on structures, systems, and strategies. Students will learn to perform basic research and analysis through writing and thinking about events in international relations from different perspectives, including realism, liberalism, and feminism. Readings are drawn from historic and contemporary scholars of international relations, cover a wide variety of issues, and are grouped together in conflicting pairs where possible. Assignments and exams are a mixture of analysis and experiential learning.

POL 260 - Introduction to American Politics and Public Policy

This course provides an introduction to the processes of political decision-making, political institutions, and the formation of public policy in the United States. The course introduces students to the basics of political decision-making by a collective, including how individual actors (voters, politicians, policy makers) reason; how institutions constrain and shape action; and how policies are ultimately designed and implemented. There will be weekly lectures and individual conferences.

POL 280 - Introduction to Political Theory

This course offers an introduction to a Western tradition of political thought by way of major ancient (Plato and Aristotle) and early modern political thinkers (Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau) who are antecedents of contemporary political philosophy and social theory. It engages the latter through the work of Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, Simone de Beauvoir, and various living scholars, for critical leverage on the tradition

POL 300 - Junior Research Seminar

This course focuses on preparing students for political science research, particularly for thesis. Topics include shaping and framing a research question; constructing a literature review; concept formation and measurement; writing with style, clarity, and grace; and presenting results. All areas of inquiry in political science willÌýbe given ample coverage.

POL 311 - Quantitative Methods for Political Science

This course serves as an introduction to quantitative methodology in political science. The course will begin with the logic of social scientific inquiry and the basics of research design, and then introduce students to the quantitative methods that are commonly used by political scientists to investigate important questions about the political world. By the end of the semester, students will have developed a critical understanding of issues related to scientific inquiry, measurement, causal inference, experimental, and observational research. Students will also learn fundamental data analytic techniques and develop the skills to apply these tools using the R computer software.

POL 319 - The Politics of Political Concepts: Power and Inequality in Political Science

Political science rests on a set of core concepts - such as political knowledge, participation, ideology, trust, the state, and power - that shape how we understand political life. This course asks how those concepts illuminate some forms of political experience while rendering others less visible. Rather than treating these concepts as neutral and universal, the course interrogates the social and political assumptions embedded within them. How do core concepts reflect particular relationships to political institutions? For whom do they work well, and what do they overlook? Drawing on work in political behavior, political theory, comparative politics, political sociology, and methodology, students will analyze debates over concept formation and measurement, with particular attention to how race, gender, class, and inequality shape political experience. Throughout the semester, students will learn to read concepts critically, trace their intellectual and political origins, and evaluate how the categories we use define what counts as politics in the first place.

POL 322 - Social Movements

The goal of the course is to inquire about the causes and consequences of several historical and contemporary social and political movements. Studying social movements in the United States from the '60s to the current Black Lives Matter movement, social movements in communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc and in Syria, and past and current social and political movements throughout Latin America, the course will assess the consequences these movements had in the political lives of the individuals and groups involved, as well as in the societies in which they took place. The course will conclude examining the political causes and consequences that give rise to different social movements across time and space.

POL 324 - Human Rights in Latin America

This course combines normative theory, empirical research, and a historical perspective to critically examine human rights in Latin America. By reviewing civil, political, economic, and sexual rights in Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Mexico, the course seeks to familiarize students with human rights in the region. To accomplish this goal, the course reviews human rights issues that have afflicted (and continue to affect) Latin American countries since the Cuban Revolution (1959). The topics covered in the class include 1) transitions from authoritarianism to democracy, 2) violations of human rights and their effects on the selected countries, 3) the creation, work, and consequences of truth commissions, 4) the use of human rights framings to extend sexual and reproductive rights, and 5) violence and human rights abuses in present-day Mexico, Colombia, and Chile.

POL 326 - Capitalism and Its Critics

"Do we still live in a bad old capitalist system or in a new evil one?" This is the central question motivating the course. The answer depends on how we define capitalism. Is it simply a mode of production that exploits workers? Or do we understand it more broadly as a complex adaptive system that appropriates value through multiple forms of domination? What is the central logic of a capitalist economy? What are the origins of capitalism? We will begin to answer these questions by first exploring the analytical foundations of a capitalist economy: private property, wage labor, markets, competition and crisis.ÌýWe will then debate key questions such as: What is the relationship between capitalism and freedom, between imperialism and capitalism? How do race and gender shape capitalism?ÌýHow have tech behemoths like Google, Amazon and Facebook challenged the fundamental logic of capitalism as we know it, if at all? How does the rise of artificial intelligence complicate theories of capitalism? We will conclude by reflecting on the realities of capitalism, and what lies beyond it.

POL 335 - Gender and Politics in the U.S. and Latin America

This course combines feminist theory and empirical research to examine gender and politics in Latin America. The course studies the workings of gender in the region over time. We discuss gender in laws and policies on marriage and divorce, regulations on reproduction and sexuality, child care, and political representation. We study how gender works within formal and informal institutions, the market, and international and domestic conflict to produce economic and status inequality. Finally, we consider the institution of normative heterosexuality and debates over gay marriage and LGBTQ rights. The course focuses on three main topics: (1) violence against women, (2) abortion decriminalization, and (3) political representation

POL 338 - Energy Politics and the Climate Crisis

This course introduces students to the tangled politics of energy systems and the climate crisis. Through the lens of political economy, we will first examine the history and politics of hydrocarbon extraction, trade, governance, and consumption. Key areas of focus will be the industrial revolution, imperial struggles overÌýoil in the Middle East, the formation of OPEC, and global production and trade networks built on massive energy consumption. We will think critically about how energy systems shape and are shaped by power struggles across class, race, and geography. In the second half of the course, we will consider the political pathways to a renewable energy system. Here, we will discuss political activism targeting hydrocarbon extraction, the enduring issue of climate debt, specifically climate reparations demanded by the global South, the effectiveness of market-based climate solutions, and the complexity of a just transition, with a focus on labor and resource politics.Ìý

POL 339 - Democratic Erosion

Readings address the causes, symptoms, and consequences of democratic erosion. Over the course of the semester, students gain theoretical, empirical, and historical context to help them understand our unique political moment.

POL 346 - International Political Economy

This course introduces students to key conceptual and substantive issues in international political economy (IPE). We will first develop a theoretical understanding of IPE by surveying its major approaches and actors. We will critically engage with issues such as imperial trade and monetary relations, postwar currency arrangements, financial and currency crises, the changing landscape of production and trade, and the role of the World Bank, the WTO, and the International Monetary Fund in managing the global economy.Ìý In the final section of the course, we will contemplate the future of the international economic order by interrogating phenomena such as the 2008 financial crisis, global supply chains, corporate power, the rise of China, and the climate crisis.

POL 347 - Politics of International Development

Why are some countries rich and others poor? Scholars have debated this question for decades, offering a plethora of answers, ranging from international trade agreements to domestic political arrangements. We will begin with the thorny question of what is meant by "development."Ìý We will evaluate theories of development andÌýreflect on how development has been done in the global South over the past decades, and how emerging trends in the global economy challenge existing development paradigms. Throughout the course, we will examine the validity of global versus domestic explanations, and consider the roles of international institutions, global finance, trade networks, foreign governments, and domestic actors in fostering or hindering development.Ìý

POL 350 - Networks and Social Structure

SeeÌýSOC 380Ìýfor description.

POL 358 - International Security in a Changing World

This course provides an introduction to international security, the study of how states and non-state actors employ the threat and use of force to achieve their political and economic objectives. In this course, we examine questions such as: What are the origins of conflict? What strategies do actors in the international system use to employ force, and how have they changed in the nuclear age? What are the current problems facing decision makers today? The course begins with an overview of theories of the causes of war. It continues by examining the effects on strategies and conflict of recent technological revolutions. We conclude with the major contemporary threats to national and international security.

POL 359 - Weapons, Technology, and War

This course examines the historical evolution of the conduct of war from a theoretical and normative perspective. What elements of war have changed over time, and what core precepts remain the same? To what degree have advances in technology altered the conduct and outcomes of war? Why have some weapons been deemed cruel and inhumane at times and merciful at others? We will explore the interrelationships among military technology, society, politics, and war, asking how different forces have shaped warfare, focusing on how and why different weapons have been used (or prohibited) over time.

POL 361 - The Science and Politics of Climate Change

The Earth's climate crisis represents a nexus of dynamic natural systems with increasing pressures from human decision-making. Understanding the current predicament and our potential futures requires a collective, interdisciplinary understanding of climate science and climate politics. The Science and Politics of Climate Change combines environmental physical science and political social science perspectives to examine the dynamics of climate change and the political and policy responses to it. The course explores the fundamental science of the Earth's climate system, timescales of natural climate variability, and drivers of modern climate change that define the anthropocene. We meanwhile explore the role of science in policy making, but also the ever changing politics of the scientific process in producing questions that guide future agendas. We approach climate politics and policymaking in the United States from national, subnational, and local perspectives. We examine the political and scientific origins of solutions to climate change, including the mitigation of greenhouse gas production; adaptation of the human and natural world to a warming planet; and significant interventions in the earth's climate system in the form of geoengineering. Throughout the course, we consider the profound implications that climate change effects and solutions have for the distribution of resources in society. We also wrestle with the ethics of climate change, including the prioritization of climate change over other issues. This course is intended for students with little to no prior knowledge of climate science or American political institutions.

POL 362 - State and Local Politics

Understanding state and local politics in this course involves an inquiry proceeding in three general stages. First, the course engages in a broad survey of the varied institutional arrangements that serve to administer subnational governments in the United States. Second, the course examines the varied political environments in which state governments operate, including an examination of state-level political culture and opinion. Finally, the course will use institutional arrangements and political environments to investigate variation in policy choices at the state and local level-particularly environmental policy.

POL 368 - Environmental Politics and Policy

The purpose of this course is to meld the science of environmental problems with the policy and politics surrounding them. Over the semester, we will cover the sources of environmental problems, the foundations of environmental policy, how environmental policy changes over time, the role of science and uncertainty, environmental policy in practice, and alternative routes towards addressing these issues. Throughout, we will focus on the conflicts that arise between the science of these problems, how they are perceived by the public and elites, and the role institutions play in addressing them.

POL 376 - Labor in America: Power and Politics in the Workplace

This seminar examines work as a site of political power. The course situates labor not only as an economic relationship but as a central domain of governance, inequality, and collective action in American politics. We will study the historical rise of labor movements and unions, the evolution of labor law, and the shifting balance of power between workers, employers, and the state. The seminar also considers contemporary transformations in work - including gig labor, subcontracting, automation, and fissured workplaces - and their implications for political voice and democratic citizenship. Key themes include class formation, racialized and gendered labor hierarchies, employer authority, regulatory capacity, and the politics of organizing. Readings draw from American political development, political economy, and empirical research on labor markets and workplace governance. Throughout, students will analyze how power operates inside firms and across institutional arenas, and how workplace politics shapes broader patterns of participation, representation, and inequality in American democracy.

POL 377 - Elections: American Style

Elections are fundamental to democratic government, but there seem to be as many variations in electoral institutions, party systems, and campaign styles as there are in democratic societies. In this course, we review the expansive literature covering elections, electoral rules, and electoral behavior in the United States. The course focuses on three main areas. First, we review the electoral process, covering presidential, congressional, state, and local elections. ThisÌýincludes electoral law, rules and institutions, and election forecasting. Second, we will explore the complex quilt of election administration and election policy at the state and local levels. Finally, we will examine individual and collective vote choice-why individuals choose to vote, how they integrate information from the political environment, and how they cast their ballots. Students should be comfortable with analytical and quantitative material since it makes up such a large portion of the literature in this area.

POL 378 - Mass Incarceration in the United States

The United States imprisons more people per capita then nearly any other nation in the world. These incarceration rates have grown at an exponential rate since the mid-1970s: while there were under 200,000 people in prison in 1970, there are around 2.1 million in prison today. Moreover, this mass incarceration affects certain groups more heavily than others. For instance, despite making up only 11% of the U.S. population, Black Americans comprise 36% of the prison population. Why did the prison population grow in the past two decades when rates of violent and non-violent crime declined? What produces racial disparities in incarceration rates? What are the prospects for meaningful change? Taking this seminar will provide you with a critical understanding of the politics and policies of the criminal justice system in the United States. The focus will be on social science research about incarceration, with readings drawn from political science, economics, sociology, and history. We will also engage with journalism, podcasts, documentaries, and guest speakers. By the end of the semester, you will have a strong foundational knowledge on this topic suitable for advanced work through a thesis, graduate school, or a career. In addition to advancing your content knowledge, this seminar will also teach you how to assess the role of data and evidence in the evaluation of particular issues or policies, and to constructively engage with these arguments in your research and writing.Ìý

POL 380 - Earth, Nature, World

Hannah Arendt called earth "the quintessence of the human condition" and a "free gift from nowhere." With the invention of the atom bomb the launch of Sputnik, she worried about the fate of the world amidst accelerating earth alienation. This course takes up those fears (and looks for hope) in relation to contemporary crises of climate change,Ìýbiodiversity loss, and resource depletion. We begin with conceptions of nature in Aristotle, Bacon, Vico, and Spinoza. We then turn to contemporary debates about the relationship between humans and nature, organized around the concepts of representation and justice. Finally, we consider how the concepts of the Anthropocene and technosphere are reconfiguring our understanding of Earth, and the "world picture" comingÌýinto view through the lens of Earth Systems Science, climate modeling, and astrobiology. We will read essays from Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt alongside literature from the "planetary turn" in the humanities and social sciences. Political theory has been called a "mongrel discipline" and the same can be said of Environmental Humanities. So we will keep in mind methodological and substantive questions about the relationship of the humanities to the natural and social sciences.

POL 381 - Science, Politics, Authority

"What do we want? Evidence-based policy! When do we want it? After peer review!" was a rallying cry against the Trump Administration's attack on the EPA. How did this vision of science as a guide and resource for democratic politics emerge and consolidate? Does it remain compelling? If it isn't, how can and should science serve democracy? This course investigates how science became a powerful source of political and cultural authority, how it has disgraced and redeemed itself, weathered storms and fallen into crisis. We begin with some early-modern pioneers and their instruments: Francis Bacon's rack and Galileo Galilei's telescope. We'll encounter doubters and warnings: Giambattista Vico on the madness of rationality and Mary Shelley's monsters. We'll look at institutions and technologies of credibility, from the laboratory and the witnessing public to the origins of peer review and the footnote. At scientific selves, epistemic virtues, and the many modes of objectivity. We'll learn how science got it's Janus face: public and protected, open and inaccessible, a model of civility and a fortress of exclusion. We survey science gone bad (eugenics, nuclear weapons, big data surveillance) and ask about future fallout. Will AI kill us all, or just take our jobs? Is geoengineering nutty (space mirrors!) or necessary (Negative Emissions Technologies)? We'll meet postmodern pranksters (Bruno Latour), liars (election deniers), concern trolls (vaccine skeptics), and repentant sinners (Latour, again). We'll fret about fraud and ponder Psychology's replication crisis. We'll see science on stage, science at the bar, science in the streets (ACT UP), and science in retreat. This will be a wild ride through treacherous terrain. "Science is Real," the lawn signs say. But is it authoritative? And can it be democratic?

POL 386 - African American Political Thought

African Americans are central actors in the liberal democratic experiment of the United States. As theorists of the project, they are among its most important contributors, fiercest critics, and generative visionaries. This course draws on this rich, diverse tradition, engaging the critical, constructive, and future-imaginative dimensions of African American political thought. We learn from and assess the claims that black Americans have made upon the polity, how they have defined themselves, and how they have sought to redefine the basic terms of American public life. Among themes that we will explore are the relationship between slavery and democracy, the role of historical memory in political life, the political significance of culture, the connections between "race"Ìýand "nation,"Ìýand the tensions between claims for black autonomy and claims for integration, as well as the meaning of such core political concepts as citizenship, freedom, equality, progress, power, and justice. As we focus our attention on these issues, we will be mindful of the complex ways in which the concept of race has been constructed and deployed and its interrelationship with other elements of identity such as gender, sexuality, class, and religion. Students can expect to develop skills and knowledge foundational to "doing political theory"Ìýas scholars and in everyday life. The course prepares students for senior thesis research and writing.

POL 387 - American Constitutional Democracy

This course examines the principles of American constitutional democracy, beginning with the Declaration of Independence and its ideals of liberty, equality, and government by consent. We explore the fundamental challenges of self-government through the political philosophical and legal texts that shaped and critiqued the American experiment: we engage early debates among Federalists, Anti-Federalists and others about foundational ideals, and consider how these ideals were translated into the structures of U.S. democracy and the principles of the Constitution. After a midterm interlude with readings from Tocqueville and Du Bois that serve to both ground our inquiry in history and elevate our theoretical perspective, we turn to debates at the core of contemporary constitutional law including presidential power, administrative authority, the Second Amendment, voting rights, and equal protection. Throughout we critically assess how these frameworks intersect with - and often obscure - the history of Indigenous dispossession and the labor of enslaved Africans. These tensions remain central to our evaluation of how ideals of American constitutional democracy operate today.

POL 390 - The Human Condition

This course undertakes a systematic study of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition (1958), both in its own terms and as a portal into the history of the modern West. We will examine the book's architecture, along with its conceptual apparatus: earth and world alienation; the vita activa and vita contemplativa; the conditions of natality, mortality, and plurality; the activities of labor, work, and action; the realms of public, private, and the social. We will explore the contexts Arendt invokes-including the ancient world and early modern science-as well as those she doesn't. That is, we will read in light of Arendt's own experience: as a German emigre in Cold War America, writing in the shadow of the Nazi death camps and the atom bomb; witnessing the expansion of the welfare state, the acceleration of automation, and the launch of Sputnik. Finally, we will locate the work intertextually, critically assessing Arendt's readings of Marx, Heidegger, and others.

POL 392 - Contemporary Democratic Theory

This course introduces students to debates in contemporary democratic theory. While we will draw on some historical sources, the focus is on current theories and dilemmas of democratic politics. During the first half of the course, we examine a variety of forms and theories of democracy: minimalist and pluralist; deliberative and representative; agonistic and radical. In the second half, we turn to a set of challenges that democratic politics and polities face today. Topics covered include concerns about the competence of the mass public, now amplified by new media like cable TVÌýand digital platforms; the relationship between democracy, capitalism, and inequality in the context of neoliberalism; legacies of colonialism and racial domination in America; the global rise of illiberal democracy and populist movements; and democracy's boundary problems, from the legitimacy of "the People," to immigration and borders. We conclude by considering sources of democratic hope in a time of crisis.

POL 395 - Illuminations: Politics in Dark Times

"Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination may come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time-span that was given them on earth."ÌýHannah Arendt took as her subject the darkest moments of the 20th century. Yet, she never lost faith in political action as a way to express and renew what she called "love of the world." She wrote luminously about the darkness that comes when terror extinguishes politics and the shining, almost miraculous events of freedom through which politics is sometimes renewed. In this course, we first investigate what Arendt's vision of politics offers efforts to comprehend and transform our political world. We turn to her as an interlocutor, not a guide, as we seek to "think what we are doing." At her suggestion, we, second, engage the lives and works of others - thinkers, artists, organizers - diving for pearls, illuminations or themselves, assertions of freedom in action that might disrupt even seemingly inexorable political tragedies.

POL 396 - Neoliberalism and its Critics

We live in neoliberal times. But what does this mean? We survey scholarly answers and hone our focus on neoliberalism as the social formation and political rationality that shape the world we inhabit. Using the large toolkit of political theory, we investigate the intellectual, economic, ideological, social, and political forces that forge this historical phenomenon. We ask how neoliberalism's dominance has affected our political institutions, values, imagination, and solidarity. What is said in favor of neoliberal values and ways of living together? What, opposed? We examine broad theoretical answers. We also consider concrete issue-areas-climate change, race politics, the care crisis, and higher education-to deepen our understanding of the world we inhabit and to tease out visions of possible futures.

POL 405 - Judgment

How are particulars subsumed under, or otherwise connected with, universals? The problem of judgment is treated with respect to a range of related concepts: taste, rhetoric, phronesis, interpretation, common sense, and the like. The initial texts are Kant's Critique of Judgment and Gadamer's Truth and Method. Particular issues emerging from these texts are treated variously in the writings of Arendt on politics, Dworkin and Fish on textual interpretation, Habermas on communication, and Oakeshott on conversation. All of these issues bear on the broad question of rationality, objectivity, and human understanding.

POL 409 - "Being and Time" and Politics

An exploration of the political implications of Heidegger's ontology, understood primarily as a phenomenology of mind. We will begin by considering some of the contexts of Heideggerian thought through an examination of Husserl's Cartesian Meditations, and we will end by tracing certain aspects of its moral and political influence both in the writings of Levinas and Arendt and in the more recent critical literature on the question of Heidegger and National Socialism. Our principal task, however, will be to pursue a close and systematic study of Being and Time, focusing on central elements of its conceptual apparatus, including, for example, notions of entity and world, care and concern, anxiety and resoluteness, temporality and death, history and the state.

POL 442 - WMD: Control, Alt, Deter?

This course investigates the origins, understandings, and effects of the spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) through the lens of science and technology studies. Topics include why attempts to control weapons programs succeed or fail; how narratives around weapons alter domestic and international orders; and the dynamics of WMD crises after deterrence failures.

POL 444 - Global Catastrophic Risks

This course investigates the politics of global risks-challenges, some created by humans and others by nature-that have the potential to drastically alter human civilization, the planet, or life itself. Such "apocalyptic" risks include extreme climate change, ecological catastrophes, global pandemics, nuclear war, artificial intelligence, and asteroid impacts. The course will analyze these nascent Armageddons using a variety of theoretical perspectives including the precautionary principle, the social construction of risk, normal accidents theory, and concepts of high-reliability operations.

POL 470 - Thesis

POL 481 - Independent Reading