Fall 2016

This course will survey research on how voters and politicians react to crime. It will examine crime from the perspective of voters, such as how they react to crime, who they blame for crime, and whether they hold politicians accountable for rising crime. It will also examine how politicians respond to voters, analyzing whether politicians exploit voters’ fears, whether they manipulate crime statistics, and why they pursued policies that led to mass incarceration. In covering these topics, we will review research on why crime has generally fallen over the last few centuries, why it may have risen in the 1960s-1980s, and why it fell in the 1990s. While surveying this research, the course will also focus on training students to evaluate quantitative evidence for causal claims.

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.

Fragile and failed states are among the most pressing challenges of the contemporary world. Yet how to establish, or reestablish, these states is among the most perplexing puzzles facing policymakers. We will briefly survey the literature on the origins of the modern state, and we will examine why certain states are fragile or failed. We will also discuss security concerns that emerge from failed and failing states, including smuggling, drug trafficking, and terrorism. We will then devote the majority of the class to considering efforts to consciously build states—especially by international actors. We will examine whether these efforts succeed and on what dimensions. In exploring these topics, you will gain familiarity with a range of academic and policy debates on state failure, international security, and statebuilding. By helping you identify and grapple with some of the dilemmas associated with building and rebuilding states, you will also learn to critically evaluate existing theories and evidence. Finally, you will have the opportunity to formulate your own theories and compile your own evidence on these topics through course assignments and class discussions.

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.

This course focuses on emerging issues in the field of Chinese politics, and books (and articles) published mainly in the last decade. Material covered will include: the state, state capacity, policy implementation, socialist legality, environmental litigation, local people’s congresses, NGOS, village elections, protest, rights consciousness, and experimental research on authoritarian responsiveness.

The course is designed, and will be conducted, like a graduate seminar.  Students who enroll must be ready to do all the reading in advance of seminar meetings and to participate actively in class discussions.

This seminar is designed to explore what we know about the interaction between the American political system and the American economic system. We will approach the topic from multiple vantage points – theory, including classic and contemporary work; comparative analysis; historical analyses of the American experience; and investigations of recent and on-going political conflicts over health care, financial reform, and other matters. The goal is to better understand why the political economy of the United States is distinctive, and to shed light on the broader question of how – and for whose benefit – the American political system operates.

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:   American Politics

This course is intended for outstanding students who intend to pursue graduate school in political science or another of the social sciences. The course is designed, and will be conducted, like a graduate seminar. The course aims to provide students with a rigorous introduction to core topics in social theory. The course centers on four major themes: power, equality, freedom, and community. Our class sessions will focus on discussions of course readings. Students are required to do all of the readings for the week in advance of class meetings and to participate actively in discussions. Grades will be determined as follows: one-half for the quality and quantity of contributions to seminar discussions; and one-half for a research paper that will be due at the time of our final class meeting. The paper will take the form of a comparative inquiry into several of the major theorists we are reading in the course. Students will begin developing plans for their research papers early in the course, and will present their work to the seminar at times that we will set aside for discussion of research-in-progress.

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:   Comparative Politics or Political Theory

The methods used to manage the power of the bureaucracy in the American political system. An introduction to theories of organizational behavior. The effects of administration structure upon the creation and distribution of public benefits.

Subfield:   American Politics

Please note that this description is from Fall 2013.

This one-unit course will feature a guest speaker each week discussing an issue currently in the news. The class is open to all students, and there are no prerequisites. The class is offered Pass/Not Pass, based on a final examination. May be repeated for credit.

This course does not count as an upper division Political Science requirement.

This course provides an overview of California politics, with a focus on contemporary issues and an analysis of who wields power and why. Specifically, the course will focus on : the demographic, social and economic forces that shape the State's politics- the three official branches of state government (executive, legislative and judicial)- the three unofficial branches (the media, lobbyists and interest groups)- campaigns (candidates, initiatives, consultants, pollsters, political parties and money), local government, the state budget and education policies.

Subfield:   American Politics

Please note this description is from Fall 2013

The course provides a critical and analysis of the political circumstances, political behavior, and the activities and consequences of Latinos   ( or 'Hispanics') within the governmental and political system of the United States.     Latinos became the nation's largest minority group in 2005 and are also the largest minority group in U.S. elementary/secondary schools.   For these and other reasons the situation of Latinos has broad social and political significance.

Subfield:   American Politics

NOTE: This description is from Fall 2013