Political Science Courses at Berkeley
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Summer 2009 Course Listing
Description: This class is an introduction to American government. We will explore the development and operation of the major institutional components of the American political system, including the Constitution, presidency, Congress, bureaucracy, courts, parties, and interest groups.
Description: This course deals with the basic problems and processes that all political systems face and examines their particular expression in Western, Communist, and Third World settings.
Description: Introduction to Research Methods in Political Science
Professor Laura Stoker
This course is an introduction to the methods employed in empirical political science research. We will cover basic topics in research design, statistics, and formal modeling, considering many examples along the way. The two primary goals of the course are: (1) to provide students with analytic tools that will help them to understand how political scientists do empirical research, and (2) to improve students' ability to pose and answer research questions on their own. There are no prerequisites.
Description: This course provides an introduction to the methods political scientists use to answer questions about politics. It begins with a discussion of the primary difficulties involved in making descriptive and causal inferences about politics, but will quickly move on to discuss the basic concepts and techniques of quantitative as well as qualitative research methods. Students will be expected to apply these skills in a series of hands-on exercises.
Description: Recommended for juniors and seniors but open to all students. This course will focus on contemporary Russian politics and society, with secondary attention on other countries of the former Soviet Union. What was Soviet-type socialism and how is its legacy shaping post-Soviet Russia? Where is Russia headed: toward democracy as it is known in the West, a new form of authoritarianism, reversion to the old system, or something else? The social movements that swept Russia and the other Soviet republics during the Gorbachev period will be explored. We will devote most of the course to the Yeltsin, Putin, and post-Putin periods and current problems of political change and upheaval. The topics to be investigated include the dilemmas of transition from a command economy to capitalism, struggles among emerging social interests, public opinion, social integration and disintegration, nationalism, and Russia's place in the world. Requirements consist of a midterm and final exam.
Description: This course offers intensive comparative study of the wave of democratization that has swept much of Latin America, Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union during the past two decades. The course will analyze the theoretical literatures on regime change and compare the experiences of countries emerging from bureaucratic authoritarianism, military rule, and socialism. How do political culture, social structure and socio-economic development, constitutional systems, and international pressures affect attempts to build democratic institutions in polities recently emerging from authoritarian rule? We will investigate, among other topics: the meaning of democracy- the factors that facilitate or impede democratic transition- the roles and strategies of mass movements and elites in the process of democratization- problems of nationalism and ethnic conflict in transitions- the relationship between democratization and economic systems- and the possible limits of democratization and risks of authoritarian reversion.
There are no formal prerequisites, but the course is recommended only for juniors and seniors who possess some background and an interest in comparative politics.
Description: This lecture course exposes students to the main debates in the field of economic and political development and underdevelopment. It covers the classic texts and scholarly traditions in the field and also gives students a sense of the frontiers of research on the political economy of development, focusing especially on the changing ideas about development,transformations in the international economy and its impact on domestic and local economies. Although the emphasis is on arguments and analytical constructs, students will also be exposed to case material from Latin America, East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia when it demonstrates a particular experience or set of ideas. Apart from an intellectual history of the field, the course explores different patterns of industrialization (ISI, the "toyoda model," post-fordism, networked production), state-building, market creation, the political consequences of economic change, and cultural responses to globalization and financial crises.
This course is NOT exclusively dedicated to the so-called "Third World" since late development was also a condition faced by every country except England. This course does not address the very important issue of development and gender in a detailed fashion.
Description: With changes in technology, the internationalization of production and the mass live increase in trans-border transactions of all kinds, it has been argued that we live and work in an era of substantively different capitalism. Were this true, it has deep implications for politics and for political economy. This undergraduate seminar explores the validity of this claim of a "new capitalism" through a variety of materials, starting with the question of whether "Fordism" ever existed, moving on to the question of whether "Post-Fordism" exists and ending with a variety of ethnographic studies that show how global production chains shape culture, gender, and hieraarchy/power.
Description: A comparative analysis of development and change in the political systems of contemporary South Asia.
Description: Travel Study Program in Kenya:
Location: Nairobi
Dates: May 24- July 4 2009.
Applications for the Travel Study Program are available online: summer.berkeley.edu/travelstudy
The course begins at the global level and moves to the local level in examining the nexus of politics, environment, and culture where conflicts ensue. These conflicts can lead to violence and hardship. They can also result in creative adaptations and solutions based in political and administrative institutions and processes that build peace. The first three weeks of the course examine global trends and institutions, the last three weeks examine the specific dynamics involving land and resources conflict in Kenya. Throughout the course, students will be introduced to social science and environmental science perspectives. Students will be exposed to the analytical tools of political economy, history,and political ecology.
The class will consist of students from the University of California, Berkeley and Kenyatta University. It will be led by faculty from both and institutions.
Description: ETHNICITY,NATIONALISM,AND VIOLENCE IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
Professor: Jugdep S. Chima, University of California, Berkeley, Summer 2009
What is the nature of ethnicity? How is ethnicity politicized into nationalism? What is the nature of nationalism? How does nationalism often lead to political violence? What are the dynamics of political violence? Finally, what strategies can the central state use to deal with violent ethnonationalist movements? This course seeks to answer these types of questions both conceptually and within a comparative framework. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding and critically assessing competing descriptive and explanatory theories for these phenomena. In addition, we will analyze the comparative origins, dynamics, and trajectories of several ethnonationalist movements within the context of the thematic readings. The primary goal of this course is to provide students with a critical understanding of the complex phenomena of ethnicity, nationalism and political violence, and to spark their intellectual curiosity into areas for future explanatory research.
Description: Description: PS 164a
Political Psychology
Professor Laura Stoker
This course explores the sources of public opinion and political behavior through the application of psychological theories about personality, learning, cognition, emotion, social influence and group dynamics. The first part of the course focuses directly on psychological theories and concepts, illustrating them with political applications. The second part of the course focuses upon topics traditionally taken up by political scientists (political socialization, political communication and media effects, candidate evaluations and voting), bringing psychological perspectives to bear.