Area Studies

The Department of Political Science at Berkeley, in cooperation with other departments, offers an unusual breadth and depth of graduate training in area studies. Area studies training at Berkeley seeks to achieve two distinct, yet ultimately interrelated, goals. First is the concern with giving students a high level of professional expertise in the history, cultures, economies, and societies of particular world regions, along with a deep knowledge of their contemporary political dynamics. At the same time, political science faculty are strongly committed to integrating the theoretical insights associated with the study of comparative politics and international relations into the analysis of the empirical materials derived from area expertise. At Berkeley, comparative theory and area study are viewed as complementary and reinforcing forms of expertise which best serve scholarship when they are thoroughly integrated.

View Berkeley's recent publications in Area Studies

Professors with special interests in this field: