Political Science
The Political Science Department offers a variety of courses that focus on four major areas of study: American politics, comparative politics, political theory, and international relations studies.
Check the Directory of Classes for the most up-to-date course information.
Summer 2022 Session Information
- SESSION A (First Half Term) courses are May 23–July 1, 2022
- SESSION B (Second Half Term) courses are July 5–August 12, 2022
- SESSION X (Full Term) courses are May 23–August 12, 2022
Courses
POLITICAL THEORY I
POLS1101S001 4 points.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS1101S001 | 001/10244 | Session A |
Mo 04:30 PM–07:30 PM We 04:30 PM–07:30 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Michelle Chun |
4 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
POLITICAL THEORY I-DISC
POLS1111S001 0 points.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS1111S001 | 001/10245 | Session A |
Mo 07:40 PM–08:30 PM We 07:40 PM–08:30 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Rebecca Marwege |
0 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
INTRO TO AMER GOVT & POLITICS
POLS1201S001 4 points.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS1201S001 | 001/10246 | Session A |
Mo 04:30 PM–07:40 PM We 04:30 PM–07:40 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Michael Miller |
4 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
INTRO AMER GOVT&POL-DISCUSSION
POLS1211S001 0 points.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS1211S001 | 001/10247 | Session A |
Mo 07:40 PM–08:30 PM We 07:40 PM–08:30 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Gustavo Novoa |
0 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
INTRO TO INT'L RELATIONS
POLS1601S001 4 points.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS1601S001 | 001/10248 | Session A |
Tu 01:00 PM–04:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Urte Peteris |
4 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
INTRO TO INT'L RELATIONS-DISC
POLS1611S001 0 points.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS1611S001 | 001/10249 | Session A |
Tu 04:10 PM–05:00 PM Th 04:10 PM–05:00 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Valerie Reynoso |
0 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
JUSTICE
POLS3100W001 3 points.
An inquiry into the nature and implications of justice in areas ranging from criminal justice to social justice to the circumstances of war and peace, considering issues such as abortion, the criminalization of behavior, the death penalty, climate change, global poverty, civil disobedience, and international conflict.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3100W001 | 001/10250 | Session A |
Tu 01:00 PM–04:10 PM Th 01:00 PM–04:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Luke MacInnis |
3 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
POLS3228S001 3 points.
This course is an introduction to American constitutional law. We examine key historical debates surrounding the constitution’s framing, ratification, and subsequent amendments, and study several major court decisions that have elaborated the constitution’s meaning over time. We will explore competing theories of how the constitution should be interpreted, how the constitution distributes and limits the power of different branches of government, and which fundamental political and civil rights the constitution guarantees (see the schedule of readings for specific topics). Students will regularly discuss, debate, and write about these issues.
A major learning goal of the course is to practice the skills needed to understand a legal argument and to articulate our own. Students will learn how to identify the different elements of a legal opinion, how to formulate a legal opinion, and how to conduct basic legal research.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3228S001 | 001/10367 | Session B |
Tu 01:00 PM–04:10 PM Th 01:00 PM–04:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Luke MacInnis |
3 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
AMERICAN URBAN POLITICS
POLS3232S001 4 points.
This urban politics course examines the evolving intergovernmental structure of political power in and relative to American cities. It includes factors that range from globalization to national and state policies and politics, down through the local level where - to misquote former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill - “all politics used to be local.“ It focuses on the context and drivers of local government politics, structures, and decision-making frameworks and on the evolution of cities’ patterns of relationships with state and national governments. Themes include power and decision-making, the leadership and administration of cities, present day problems and strategies to deal with them, the historical origins of urban politics, past federal and state policies toward cities and the contemporary consequences of these patterns. The survivability of the city in the face of contemporary overlapping crises will be addressed. Among other topics, students can expect to focus on urban political economy, political machines and urban reform, immigration, race and ethnicity in urban politics, regional efforts to contend with economic development and crisis, federal laws and policies that have shaped today’s urban environment, the day to day administration of cities, and urban problems such as fiscal strain, poverty, the burden of growth and attracting economic investment, the costs and consequences of urban terror, disaster, extreme political lability, and the evolving global city.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3232S001 | 001/10303 | Session B |
Mo 01:00 PM–04:10 PM We 01:00 PM–04:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Judith Russell |
4 |
Registration Block (no Adds) (self-man. Wait List) |
In-Person |
AMERICAN URBAN POLITICS-DISC
POLS3233S001 0 points.
This is the required discussion section for POLS S3233.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3233S001 | 001/10304 | Session B |
Mo 04:10 PM–05:00 PM We 04:10 PM–05:00 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Ashwin Dubey |
0 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
ADVANCES IN IPE
POLS3628S001 4 points.
This course examines questions in international political economy, asking what we know and how we know it. It addresses questions such as: Why do some countries promote globalization while others resist it? What do IOs do in international politics? Who runs our system of global governance? We will explore these questions and others by focusing on topics such as international trade, foreign aid, investment, and the environment. For each topic, we will use a variety of theoretical lenses and then investigate the evidence in favor of each. More generally, the course will consider the challenges of drawing casual inferences in the field of international political economy. There are no prerequisites for this course but an introductory economy course would be helpful. Students will write a short reading response each week and produce a research proposal for studying a topic related to international political economy, though they do not need to actually conduct this research.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3628S001 | 001/10305 | Session A |
Tu 01:00 PM–04:00 PM Th 01:00 PM–04:00 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Davit Sahakyan |
4 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
ADVANCES IN IPE-DISC
POLS3629S001 0 points.
This is the required discussion section for POLS S3628.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3629S001 | 001/10306 | Session A |
Tu 04:10 PM–05:00 PM Th 04:10 PM–05:00 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Manu Singh |
0 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
CHINA'S FOREIGN RELATIONS
POLS3671W001 3 points.
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the foreign relations of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to the present. The course looks at the world from China’s point of view and is organized geographically, moving from China’s homeland to its borderlands and continents and sea lanes beyond Asia.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3671W001 | 001/10253 | Session B |
Tu 01:00 PM–04:10 PM Th 01:00 PM–04:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Michael Beckley |
3 |
Open for Enrollment (auto-fill Wait List) |
In-Person |
Data Science for Politics
POLS3730X001 3 points.
This course explores techniques to harness the power of ``big data'' to answer questions related to political science and/or American politics. Students will learn how to use R---a popular open-source programming language---to obtain, clean, analyze, and visualize data. No previous knowledge of R is required.
We will focus on applied problems using real data wherever possible, using R's ``Tidyverse.'' In total, in this course we will cover concepts such as reading data in various formats (including ``cracking'' atypical government data sources and pdf documents); web scraping; data joins; data manipulation and cleaning (including string variables and regular expressions); data mining; making effective data visualizations; using data to make informed prediction, and basic text analysis. We will also cover programming basics including writing functions and loops in R. Finally, we will discuss how to use R Markdown to communicate our results effectively to outside audiences. Class sessions are applied in nature, and our exercises are designed around practical problems: Predicting election outcomes, determining the author of anonymous texts, and cleaning up messy government data so we can use it.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS3730X001 | 001/00012 | Session B |
Mo 05:30 PM–08:10 PM We 05:30 PM–08:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Michael Miller |
3 |
Closed for Online Registration (no Adds or Drops) |
GLOBAL ENERGY: SECURITY/GEOPOL
POLS4811S001 3 points.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS4811S001 | 001/10251 | Session A |
Tu 09:00 AM–12:10 PM Th 09:00 AM–12:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Albert Bininachvili |
3 |
Registration Block (no Adds) (self-man. Wait List) |
In-Person |
STRAT INTELLIGNC/POL DEC MAKNG
POLS4832S001 3 points.
The interaction of intelligence and political decision-making in the U.S. other Western democracies, Russia and China. Peculiarities of intelligence in the Middle East (Israel, Iran, Pakistan). Intelligence analyzed both as a governmental institution and as a form of activity, with an emphasis on complex relations within the triangle of intelligence communities, national security organizations, and high-level political leadership. Stages and disciplines of intelligence process. Intelligence products and political decision-making. The function of intelligence considered against the backdrop of rapid evolution of information technologies, changing meaning of homeland security, and globalization. Particular emphasis on the role of intelligence in the prevention of terrorism and WMD proliferation.
Course Number | Section/Call Number | Session | Times/Location | |
---|---|---|---|---|
POLS4832S001 | 001/10252 | Session B |
Tu 09:00 AM–12:10 PM Th 09:00 AM–12:10 PM |
|
Instructor | Points | Enrollment | Method of Instruction | |
Albert Bininachvili |
3 |
Registration Block (no Adds) (self-man. Wait List) |
In-Person |