Graduate

This doctoral seminar reviews major theoretical and empirical debates in Latin American politics.  The goal is to enhance students’ empirical knowledge of Latin American countries, to explore the central themes and issues that have animated the literature on Latin American politics, and to encourage students to begin to think about how they might design and execute research that would contribute to scholarship on the region.  Major themes include: corporatism and other forms of political incorporation, democratic breakdown and bureaucratic authoritarianism, import substitution, democratization, the politics of economic liberalization, Latin American politics institutions and party politics, business and politics, the rule of law, and subnational institutions.  

The goal of this course is to introduce advanced political science graduate students to current debates in the field of international security and to prepare these students for conducting dissertation research in their own areas of interest within this field. Its orientation is theoretical but also empirical, and it focuses on both reading and research.

This graduate seminar introduces students to the rapidly evolving field of qualitative and multimethod research. The seminar is designed to provide students with an overview of qualitative methods essential to political science research. In addition, we will consider a range of ways in which qualitative methods can be integrated with each other, as well as other research methodologies, such as field and natural experiments, formal models, and statistical modeling. Required readings cover classic texts, recent innovations, and applied examples.

Note that this means there is a lot of reading! Students are expected to become familiar with both the methodological ideas and their substantive application.

The overriding goal of the course is to provide students with the background necessary to use qualitative and multimethod techniques in their own original research. It will enable students to master core tools, understand basic problems, and explore advanced topics. Students should ultimately be able to apply these methods in writing a dissertation prospectus, grant proposal, or research paper.

Dissertation Writing Workshop for students in all empirical subfields.   Students working on all phases of their dissertations, from prospectus to post field work writing and post-research article preparation, are welcome.

A weekly seminar on contemporary approaches to political theory.

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This seminar provides an introduction to the major debates in comparative political economy. Although the empirical focus is on the affluent democracies, many of the debates and issues analyzed have implications for other regions. The course is divided into two main parts. The first part examines leading theoretical perspectives on political economy, such as Friedman, Marx, Weber, and Polanyi. The second part of the course is more topical. It probes a number of examples of economic development, crisis, and change, with an eye to assessing alternative theoretical perspectives.

Although the goal of most social science research is to benefit society, academia does not always train students in the ‘nuts and bolts’ mechanics of applying rigorous social science methods to solve practical policy problems or how to ensure that applied research can also produce publishable results. In this course, we focus on how to do policy-focused research that answers questions of both theoretical and substantive importance, with an emphasis on work that involves direct collaboration with an organization, agency, or firm.

This course is designed for students who have an interest in conducting collaborative applied research for the public good, both within and outside academia. Examples of the topics we will discuss include: finding an implementation partner and negotiating a relationship, data use agreements and working with messy data, designing and implementing a field experiment, ethics and equity in collaborative research, and disseminating results to partners, academics, policymakers, and the general public.

This course is designed as a hands-on workshop. Students will be expected to work through a series of assignments aimed at developing their own collaborative research project on a topic of interest. Each week, we will have a short lecture/discussion and then will engage in project work. It is useful (though not required) if you have an idea for a potential project to work on throughout the semester. However, you do not need to have a partnership established for the project; the work you do during the semester can also be focused on a hypothetical project for which you could imagine approaching a potential partner in your future work. 

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