Spring 2014

This seminar will provide a broad investigation of contemporary strategies of regulation. The course will begin with a discussion of traditional forms of “command and control” regulation, investigating classical topics like standard-setting, inspection, and enforcement.  We will then move on to various alternatives to “command and control” regulation, such as responsive regulation, regulatory negotiation, and management-based regulation.  We will also consider debates about the efficacy of self-regulation and meta-regulation. The course will then examine recent developments in “non-state” regulation, including private standards and certification.  The efficacy of private regulation to regulate public goods like fisheries, forest resources, and food safety will be examined.  The course will conclude with a review of recent discussions about the development and diffusion of the “regulatory state” and “regulatory capitalism” and consider how regulatory fields evolve over time.   In general, the course will focus on how the interaction of politics, institutions, and governance shape the effectiveness and legitimacy of regulation.  It will draw on examples from financial, health, safety, criminal, and environmental regulation.

The purpose of this course is to carefully consider some fundamental issues regarding race/ethnicity in American politics, including its roots or ‘causes’ and its ‘consequences’ or impacts, through a broad examination of the political science research which addresses a range of dimensions relevant to the topic. We aim to understand and critically assess the sources, nature and extent of impact of race/ethnicity in American politics as revealed in systematic studies of these phenomena, demonstrated in the body of research.   An underlying assumption of the course is that race/ethnicity has been and continues to be an important feature of American politics, albeit in changing ways and to varying degrees.  Beyond being a substantial social factor or force in itself, understanding race/ethnicity helps illuminate (and is illuminated by) core ideas and institutions of the political system. 

This course is a survey of major theoretical approaches and empirical research in the field of political behavior. It focuses on psychological approaches to understanding political beliefs, attitudes, and actions, and on the implications of individual choices for collective outcomes. The course considers alternative approaches to political behavior, including theories of rational choice, social cognition, learning, emotion, group dynamics, and social identity. Specific topics will include: personality and politics, political socialization, public opinion and political ideology, social influence (authority, conformity, persuasion, and deliberation), mass media influence, racial attitudes, ethnic conflict, and political participation.

This seminar is an introduction to the empirically-oriented study of the relationships between law and politics, and between politics and the design, behavior, and impact of legal institutions. Readings, which will include comparative as well as American studies, are organized in terms of topics such as (a) the political sources of the rule of law, judicial independence and constitutional courts; (b) typologies of legal systems and legal institutions; (c) the role of courts in politics and policymaking; (d) decision-making by judges and officials in other legal institutions, such as regulatory and administrative agencies; (e) the capacity of law and courts to affect policy and social change. In the course of addressing these topics, the seminar will familiarize students with prominent approaches to research and explanation in the “public law” subfield of political science.   

This seminar will focus on the postwar relations in East Asia. Myriad sources of geopolitical conflict lead many to describe the region as “ripe for rivalry” and state-to-state tensions remain high, particularly in Northeast Asia. Yet there have been no shooting wars in Northeast Asia since the Korean armistice in 1953 and Southeast Asia saw its last major war end with the pullback of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia in the Third Indochina War. Despite the absence of overt warfare East Asia has been grappling with a number of ongoing and emerging security problems—North Korea, cross-Straits relations, the rise of China; the low levels of “Asian identity” and the continuation of history-based issues; territorial disputes; coercive diplomacy; and the rise of terrorism and terrorist states. To date many of the problems of the region have been effectively “managed” and more recently the rise of new regional institutions have helped to alleviate certain ongoing tensions. But maritime tensions have suddenly become confrontational. This seminar will focus on this range of issues with particular attention to the various tensions between establishing closer Asian ties and the preservation of national sovereignty and the institutional efforts to reconcile these tensions.

This course provides a framework for the advanced study of politics in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on readings from across the social sciences and humanities, the course is designed to assess competing explanations for the varied performance of African countries in the areas democratization, institution building, identity politics, and violent conflict. The course is intended to provide graduate students in political science and related fields with the substantive background and analytical skills needed to become producers of new research in the study of African politics.

Autonomy, understood as self-governance and self-reliance, has been an important ethical and political ideal in the last two centuries. It has also been criticized as a source of self-destructive individualism and gender oppression. This course will look at how autonomy is understood by three political traditions: liberalism, socialism, and romanticism. We will ask how, according to these traditions, autonomous human beings should view their place in nature and society. Thinkers studied will include Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Jack London, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Michael Kimmel. Assignments will consist of one short and one long essay. No prior experience of political theory is required.

The Junior Seminars are intense writing seminars which focus on the research area of the faculty member teaching the course. The seminars provide an opportunity for students to have direct intellectual interactions with faculty members while also giving the students an understanding for faculty research.

Junior seminars fulfill upper division requirements for the major.

Subfield:   Political Theory

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.