All information in this guide is tentative and subject to change. Check the Political Science Department Office for updates. Current Information on rooms and times for the classes listed can be obtained from the university-wide Time Schedule of Classes or from the Political Science office.
PSC 600 m001 Constitutional Law
Instructor: Keith Bybee
Class #: 42052
Offered: M/W 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm
Meets with LAW 602 m002
Course Description
A course covering the jurisprudence of individual rights developed by the United States Supreme Court since the Civil War. The topics covered include substantive due process; desegregation; race and gender discrimination; affirmative action; free expression; religious freedom; the right to privacy; and the constitutional significance of the welfare state. The Tuesday, Thursday classes will be supplemented by a series tutorial meetings at which classic works in the field will be discussed. PSC 600: Constitutional Law II is open only to PhD students. Enrollment requires instructor permission.
PSC 600 m301 European Integration
Instructor: Glyn Morgan
Class #: 41898
Offered: W 6:45 pm – 9:30 pm
Course Description
From 1986 until 2005, the project to build an economically and politically integrated Europe proved remarkably successful. In the last few years, however, this project has confronted a number of interlocking difficulties—"or polycrises.” These difficulties include: populist nationalism; immigration; demographic decline; geopolitical conflict, and now the war sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These polycrises prompt the questions: (i) Does European integration have a future: (ii) If so, what form must it take to survive? More generally, the EU represents the first genuine attempt to find an alternative to the nation-state. If the EU fails, then what does this tell us about the nature and durability of the nation-state as a macropolitical form?
PSC 602 m001 Public Policy Analysis *** Cancelled ***
PSC 611 m001 American Parties & Election
Instructor: Chris Faricy
Class #: 41883
Offered: Th 9:30 am – 12:15 pm
Course Description
This course examines the origins and consequences of American political parties and uses political science approaches to understand political parties and elections. By the end of the course, you should have a basic understanding of the classic works on parties, as well as a strong grasp of recent theoretical and empirical advances and important debates in the study of parties, party systems, and elections.
PSC 651 m001 Theories of International Relations
Instructor: Audie Klotz
Class #: 41884
Offered: W 12:45 pm – 3:30 pm
Course Description
This course explores alternative perspectives on power in the international system, covering global, state-centric and transnational approaches. Readings cover both classics and newer exemplars. While we will relate theories to contemporary controversies, you should be prepared to embark on more than a current events course. By introducing the basic vocabulary and some of the major debates of the field, the course serves as a foundation for the field exam, additional coursework, and dissertation research.
PSC 694 m001 Qualitative Political Analysis
Instructor: Audie Klotz
Class #: 31474
Offered: M 12:45 pm-3:30 pm
Course Description
This course introduces the three methodological techniques most often associated in Political Science with the qualitative label: ethnography, discourse analysis, and historiography. Through homework assignments, you will learn to apply each tool in research of your choice. To situate these methods within a research proposal—the final assignment—we will also query distinctions between qualitative and quantitative (as well as other) methods. Your research design will mimic a funding proposal, as appropriate for the project (e.g., master’s thesis, pilot study, or dissertation). Thus, the course should be useful both to those in the early stages of graduate work and to those starting dissertations.
PSC 700 m006 Politics of the Middle East
Instructor: Yael Zeira
Class #: 42049
Offered: T 9:30 am – 12:15 pm
Course Description
In this course, we will engage with key questions in the study of Middle East and North Africa politics and the politics of the Global South more broadly, with a special focus on authoritarian regimes and strategies, clientelism, opposition parties and movements, and the causes and consequences of the Arab Uprisings, including democratic transitions, reversals, and war. We will explore these questions using cases from across the region, including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and the Gulf, with an eye towards comparison with other world regions. The main goaof the course is to introduce you to some of the main questions driving contemporary research on Middle East and North Africa politics, the most important contributions made to answering these questions to date, and the gaps that remain in our understanding of these questions. In doing so, it aims to give you not only a survey of the relevant literature but also the tools you will need to engage with and evaluate new research, including your own.
PSC 706 m001 US National Security Policy
Instructor: Renee de Nevers
Class #: 32335
Offered: W 9:30 am-12:15pm
Cross – listed with PAI 718.m001
Course Description
This course will explore U.S. national security and foreign policy. We will examine U.S. policy during the cold war to establish a framework for understanding the policy challenges the U.S. faces today; foreign and security policy decision-making; and current policy issues. The course will use a combination of readings, case studies, exercises, and guest speakers to explore issues ranging from the U.S. national security structure, diplomacy and the use of force, and U.S. relations with allies and potential adversaries.
PSC 711 m001 American Constitutional Development
Instructor: Thomas Keck
Class #: 41885
Offered: W 9:30 am – 12:15 pm
Course Description
In this course, we will explore the development of the American constitutional order over time. In doing so, we will examine questions like the following: Does the current American republic have a meaningful relationship to the one envisioned by the framers? To what extent, and in what ways, have our governing institutions changed since 1789? How have those changes been brought about, and by whom? Transformative judicial opinions? Reconstructive presidential actions? Popular demands? What role have constitutional ideas and institutions played in broader patterns of political development? Conversely, what role have such broader political developments played in shaping the Constitution? Is the United States currently at risk of constitutional crisis, democratic erosion, or other serious failing?
My principal goals for the course, the applicability of which will vary from student to student, are (a) to prepare you to write a doctoral dissertation in the field of law and courts; (b) to prepare you to teach undergraduate courses in Constitutional Law, which is a marketable skill whether or not you are planning to write a dissertation in the field; (c) to improve your grasp of American political and constitutional history in ways that will profitably inform a wide variety of research projects in American politics; and (d) to prepare you for qualifying exams in the fields of American Politics and Law & Courts. If none of those options seem relevant to you, the course should at least help you have informed conversations about American constitutionalism with present and future colleagues, and perhaps we can identify some other relevant goals as well.
The readings for the course will include selections from classic and contemporary works by historians, legal scholars, and political scientists, with an emphasis on works by contemporary political scientists.
PSC 713 m001 Congress and the Presidency
Instructor: Maraam Dwidar
Class #: 41886
Offered: T 3:30 pm – 6:15 pm
Course Description
This course will introduce students to the study of political institutions in American politics and policymaking. We will discuss the changing roles of, and relationships between, a range of formal and informal institutional actors, including the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, the federal bureaucracy, political parties, interest groups, the mass media, and social movements and intersectional activisms. In doing so, we will continuously consider the implications of institutional history, norms, and procedure for democratic function and legitimacy. Importantly, while this course will emphasize the legislative and executive branches, it will also survey the broader American political institutions literature.
PSC 752 m001 International Law and Organizations
Instructor: Lamis Abdelaaty
Class #: 41887
Offered: T 9:30 am-12:15 pm
Course Description
Global governance, from formal organizations to soft law, establishes the “rules of the game” in international affairs. This course surveys the varying character and density of these rules across issues. Topics may include war, intervention, human rights, trade, development, self-determination, migration, and environment. Students will delve deeper through research papers.
PSC 769 m001 Comparative Parties & Politics
Instructor: Seth Jolly
Class #: 41888
Offered: T 12:30 pm-3:15 pm
Course Description
The course provides an overview of concepts and theories employed in the study of political parties in competitive democracies. The course will develop theoretical arguments and employ empirical examples primarily from the literature on party systems in advanced postindustrial democracies. In the first section, we will focus on pure, general theories of parties as coalitions of politicians and party systems as arenas for competition among such coalitions.
In the second part of class, we consider democratic institutions, and more specifically electoral systems, as rules that constrain and enable politicians to choose strategies. In the third section, we consider societal (political-economic, cultural) conditions as forces impinging upon the nature of competition among parties and the internal process of strategy formation and resource pooling inside parties. In the final part of class, we consider change in both parties and party systems, paying special attention to the entry of new parties.
PSC 780 m001 Latin American Politics
Instructor: Matt Cleary
Class #: 41889
Offered: T 3:30 pm-6:15 pm
Course Description
This graduate seminar introduces students to many of the central concepts and puzzles relevant to understanding politics in Latin America. The course is structured thematically; we will analyze politics among a different subset of countries each week, depending on the context of the readings and discussion. Important themes in the course include political and economic development, democratization, institutional design and performance, social movements, economic policies/reforms, gender, ethnicity and indigenous politics, and socioeconomic inequality. We also draw on a wide variety of theoretical approaches to politics, including cultural, structural, institutional, and rationalist explanations for political outcomes. The reading list comes mostly from political science, but we also will draw from relevant literature in economics, history, sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences.
PSC 794 m001 Advanced Quantitative Political Analysis
Instructor: Dimitar Gueorguiev
Class #: 31476
Offered: Th 12:30 pm – 3:15 pm
Course Description
This course has several goals. First, to provide you with the ability to understand, utilize, and evaluate the classical linear regression model in an informed manner. Second, to explore alternative specifications and modeling approaches that better conform to the nature of your data and your questions. Third, to think carefully about the interpretations you draw from statistical analysis and to improve inference by design. Specific topics to be covered include, bivariate and multivariate linear regression, non-linear and limited dependent variables, panel and spatial data, experimental methods, and quasi-experimental methods like instrumental variables estimation and regression discontinuity. The connection between the course material and applied research will be highlighted throughout the course. Students will have regular problem sets, practice with statistical software, mainly Stata, and an exam.
PSC 997 Master’s Thesis
Register for class # 32336, PSC 997 m001, 6 credit hours –or-
Register for class # 32089, PSC 997 m002, 0 credit hours
PSC 999 Dissertation Credits
Register for class # 30628 for 1 to 15 credits
GRD 998 Degree in Progress (Zero Hour Registration)
Register for class number # 37039 - GRD 998.001-or-
Register for class number # 37040 - GRD 998.002
When you have completed all of your coursework and your dissertation credits, you should be registered each fall and spring semester for “Degree in Progress”, GRD 998, to maintain your active student status. Please see Candy Brooks if you have any questions about your credits.
Remember to complete a “Certification of Full-Time Status” form each time you register for zero credit hours to continue your full time status. A copy is attached for your