Summer Sessions | Courses | Political Science

What is a just society? What is a good life? How should we live together when we disagree about justice and the good life? Is government essential to living well? What is the best form of government? What rights do we have? How, if at all, can the coercive power of the state be justified? These are some of the enduring questions we will explore. A major goal of the course is to exercise techniques needed to understand a political thinker's arguments and to construct one's own.

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Introduction to national political institutions and processes. The presidency, Congress, the courts, political parties and elections, interest groups, and public opinion.

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A survey of major concepts and issues in international relations. Issues include anarchy, power, foreign policy decision-making, domestic politics and foreign policy, theories of cooperation and conflict, international security and arms control, nationalism, international law and organizations, and international economic relations.

This is the required discussion section for POLS UN1601.

Nothing is more important to the legitimacy of a representative government than the integrity of elections. Throughout the history of the American republic, various actors have sought to shape electoral outcomes. Some have even done so legally! While contemporary citizens of the United States have tended to think of their elections as paragons of reliability, events in the last fifteen years or so have increasingly led to questions on this front. This course will examine issues of fairness, integrity, and security currently facing the American electoral system. In identifying ailments in American democracy, we will discuss both their causes and effects. Finally, we will examine potential reforms in an effort to determine to what extent American elections can be "fixed" (see what I did there?). This course will be particularly useful for students considering professional legal education as a next step.

The course focuses on the nexus between energy and security as it reveals in the policies and interaction of leading energy producers and consumers. Topics include: hydrocarbons and search for stability and security in the Persian Gulf, Caspian basin, Eurasia, Africa and Latin America; Russia as a global energy player; role of natural gas in the world energy balance and European energy security; transformation of the global energy governance structure; role and evolution of the OPEC; introduction into energy economics; dynamics and fundamentals of the global energy markets; IOCs vs NOCs; resource nationalism, cartels, sanctions and embargoes; Asia's growing energy needs and its geo-economic and strategic implications; nuclear energy and challenges to non-proliferation regime; alternative and renewable sources of energy; climate change and attempts of environmental regulation; emerging international carbon regimes and search for optimal models of sustainable development. Special focus on implications of the shale revolution and technological innovations on U.S. energy security.

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.

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.

This course focuses on the political incorporation of Latinos into the American polity. Among the topics to be discussed are patterns of historical exclusion, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, organizational and electoral behavior, and the effects of immigration on the Latino national political agenda.

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.

Survey, lab, and field experiments have become increasingly prominent ways of studying politics and political behavior. In this course, we will discuss the logic of experimentation, its strengths and weaknesses compared to other methodologies, and the ways in which experimentation has been -- and could be -- used to investigate political phenomena. We will discuss a wide array of applications; examples include ethnic discrimination, gender-based violence, voter turnout, uncivil discourse, media effects, and money-driven access to legislators. Students will learn how to interpret and design experiments.

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