Spring 2015

For this iteration of 212A, we will focus on ancient Greek political thought, especially (but not exclusively) the work of Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle.   Enrolled students (and others on request) will receive a book list.

Note: This description is from Fall 2012.

Natural shocks, such as floods, earthquakes, and droughts, pose significant challenges for all governments. Unlike other policy areas, for which policymakers typically have a reasonable time period to investigate and debate policy options, natural hazards often require decision making under severe time constraints and when many lives are at stake. In developing countries, where overall government capacity is often lacking in multiple areas, natural shocks pose particularly difficult problems for policy makers, but recent events around the world highlight the risks to all administrations of insufficient preparedness. In addition, the likely consequences of climate change will greatly test the ability of governments to respond effectively to crisis situations. Natural disasters can result from limited government capacities to respond to shocks while subsequently placing tremendous demands on government.

In this course, we will consider the capacity of countries to prepare for and respond to natural shocks and evaluate the relationship between this capacity and the emergence of natural disasters. Our discussions will focus on the incentives of national governments to invest in disaster risk reduction, preparedness and response, the ways in which governments interact with international and non-governmental organizations, and the role of local communities building disaster-related capacities. Students will have the opportunity to explore their particular interests in the field of natural disasters through group activities during the semester and in an individual project. 

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.

We are currently experiencing a global expansion of judicial power. In stable democracies, transitional societies and even autocracies, courts have become central actors in national politics and policymaking. Today, major political controversies often end up in court and are decided by judges, rather than by elected legislators serving in national parliaments. How do we explain this tremendous growth of judicial power and courts newly expanded roles in politics and policymaking? And what are the consequences of this judicialization of politics and policymaking for majoritarian institutions and democratic practices? 

This course provides an introduction to the political science of law and courts. This is not a course on constitutional law, and the focus will not be on the development of legal doctrines or the reasoning of important cases. Instead, we will evaluate law and courts as political institutions and judges as political actors and policy-makers across different types of political systems. Topics will include: the foundations of judicial independence, the relationship between the courts and other branches of government (e.g., judicial oversight of the bureaucracy), the sources of judicial power, the rights revolution and the role of courts in democratic consolidation. Courts in the U.S., France, Egypt, Turkey and Taiwan will be examined.

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

Over the past twenty years, many American cities have experienced comebacks but others have experienced sharp declines. Growing numbers of upper- income residents have relocated to some cities; downtowns have been transformed into lively arts and entertainment districts; and crime has fallen. Other cities have faced bankruptcy or near bankruptcy causing them to slash services. This course examines the causes and implications of these recent upswings and downturns in urban fortunes. The questions we consider include: How did cities achieve these transformations? Why were some cities much more successful than others? How has the revitalization of cities affected the urban poor? The course will also examine the impact of the recession on cities. How did the recession jeopardize recent gains in urban prosperity? How have cities coped with the fiscal strains presented by reduced tax revenues and limits on state and federal assistance?

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.

This junior seminar falls within the "International Relations" subfield, and can fulfill an upper-division requirement for the major

Subfield: American Politics

The modern political period is recognizable to us and yet also distant. Its increasing – if contested – acceptance of democracy as the best mode of government and its solutions to the dangers of democracy inform our beliefs today. Yet, its characteristic belief in progress and the inevitable, stadial, movement of history is less acceptable to us, as is its belief that democracy is compatible with colonialism and palpably differing gender roles.  

This course will look at the modern political period and its wrestling with democratic ideals through the lenses of four political traditions: liberalism, socialism, romanticism, and radical historicism. We will look at these traditions’ views on what it means to be fully a human being and the modes of government that are most compatible with these conceptions. In particular, we will ask what these traditions had to say about colonialism and gender equality. Ending the course with Nietzsche’s contestation of the stadial view of history, we will make a prelude to our own far less historical century.

NOTE: Lecture and discussion times as well as location may change

Homelessness, global warming, corruption, bankrupt pension systems, educational inequality... This course explores what we can learn in general about the way societies try to address and solve difficult and seemingly intractable public problems. Can we attribute success or failure to institutions and their capacity to solve problems? Are problems difficult to solve because they are so complex and we lack know-how or because of a failure of political will? What are the characteristics of organizations or communities able to solve problems proactively or creatively? How do public problems get politically framed and how are they used to mobilize constituencies? The course draws on literature in public administration, public policy studies, and democratic theory to try to better understand some of the major social, political, environmental, and economic problems of our contemporary world.

Note: This description is from Spring 2014

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

This course will introduce students to several foundational questions in the study of American constitutional politics and to techniques of constitutional interpretation. What are the political implications of a written constitution designed to limit the power of the national government? What is the role of the Supreme Court (and judges more generally) in ensuring an appropriate balance of national and state power? What does it mean to have a system that “separates” power? And what is the role of the judiciary in policing this separation of powers at the national level, in peacetime and in wartime? Should judges be engaged in these efforts at all? If so, why? If not, why not?