Spring 2015

This course examines public opinion in American Politics and how to measure it.  The course considers the nature of public opinion, survey methods, the role of polling in opinion expression, opinion formation, citizen knowledge, the role of media in shaping opinion, the effect of opinion on policy, and political polarization.

Course themes:

1. What is public opinion and in what ways is it expressed?

2. How do surveys perform as measures of public opinion and what is their role in our democracy? Are they accurate? What do they measure?

3. What are the implications of the changes in technology for surveys?

4. Are citizens knowledgeable? Are they rational or self-interested?

5. Is the public polarized?

6. How does the media influence public opinion?

7. What role does opinion play in shaping policy?

This course will focus on the transformative process through which the nations of contemporary Southeast Asia have confronted political crises and instability and the various levels of success with which they have attempted to implement comprehensive programs of reform.  This course will analyze several different areas of political activity, such as:  state-led initiatives (political economy) regarding development and resource distribution; citizen and opposition movements both within and outside formal state institutions which seek to influence, alter, or overturn state action and policy; institution-building and the cultivation of social capital; and regional and transnational flows of capital and labor which act in alliance with or in opposition to national economic institutions.  Specific topics will include a comparative analysis of state policy; the relationship between illicit economies (such as narcotics) and ethnic insurgency; the nascent political voice of religion and ethnicity as nationalist or opposition ideologies; the expansion and influence of local NGOs (legal aid, human rights, women’s rights, etc.); political violence and alternative paths to the expression of discontent; and corruption.  After a general overview of Southeast Asia as a regional political theater, we will turn our attention to a series of in-depth case studies.  

In this course, we consider the politics and policymaking processes of India. Beginning with a brief review of colonial India and the early post-Independence period, we focus on the character of politics in the current era. To do so, we ask a set of questions about the functioning of the world’s largest democracy, including: what are the implications of social cleavages such as caste, class, language and religion for democratic politics? How successful has India’s state been in promoting socioeconomic development? What are the key issues facing India’s government and citizens today? The course draws on both academic texts and popular non-fiction to examine these issues of Indian democracy and political economy. We also use group activities, including a mock parliamentary session, to understand better the complexities of policy making in modern India. 

“What Is Freedom?”

Is freedom about doing what you want as long as you don=t hurt anyone else, as modern liberals claim? Is it about collectivizing power, as a left tradition of political thought has long argued? Or is it about actively participating in rule, as a classical republican tradition argues? Is freedom an inherently individual practice or a necessarily social and collective one? What is the relationship of freedom to equality, to capitalism, to identity? Do all human beings, in all times and places, want to be free? If not, what then? In this course, we will pursue these and other questions through considering classical and contemporary works of Western political theory. We will neither settle the question of what freedom is nor the question of how to produce it. Rather, the course aims to deepen your appreciation of freedom’s importance, complexity and variety, introduce you to the field of political theory, and hone your reading, analytic and writing abilities. Readings include Aristotle, Socrates, Mill, Rousseau, Marx, Friedman, Dostoyevsky, Berlin, Foucault, and several contemporary authors. Required lecture and discussion. Two papers, a midterm and a final.

An overview of modern Korea divided into the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The course will compare the two Koreas in terms of political, social and economic institutions, culture, political elites and modernization strategy.

Subfield:   Comparative Politics

Please note that this description is from Fall 2013.

 This course is designed primarily for students interested in exploring in depth the relationship between U.S. foreign policy and developments in East Asia. Although geographically quite distant from the Asian mainland, the United States has been deeply involved militarily, diplomatically and economically with that region since the 19^th Century. Since the defeat of Japan in the Pacific component of World War II, the United States has maintained a strong military presence throughout the Asia-Pacific and has fought costly wars in Korea and Viet-Nam, all as integral components of the Cold War. More recently, the rise of China; the cross-Straits problem surrounding Taiwan; the economic torpor of Japan; the continued division of the Korean peninsula and the nuclear program of North Korea; along with the potential for Muslim terrorism in Southeast Asia are but a few of the problems that animate the foreign policy interactions between East Asia and the United States. This course will explore the historical and contemporary foreign policies of the United States toward Asia with an eye toward analyzing the ways in which Asia has been shaped by American, and in turn American policies have been shaped by events in Asia.

Students who took PS 191 "Junior Seminar: American Foreign Policy in East Asia" with Professor Pempel cannot take this course due to the substantial similarity in course content.

Note: The description is from Spring 2014

This course considers the pressures on the advanced countries for economic and political adaptation. As nations struggle to recover from the crash and sustain employment and productivity growth to assure expanding real incomes of the citizens, they find that their policy choices have been altered by two, perhaps contradictory, sets of forces. One set of forces, globalization and the decomposition of production, seems to limit the capacity of governments to act in the face of the supposedly inexorable pressures of markets. The other set of forces, the instability and crash of financial markets along with the dangers of climate change, seem to call for government action. What is a government to do? Can wealthy nations stay wealthy? Are equality and sustained growth compatible? Can emerging economies succeed in sustaining growth?
 

Note: This description is from Spring 2014.

This course will examine international migration from a historical and comparative perspective, looking at why people migrate, how citizens respond to the migration, and how states respond to migration. The first part of the course looks at the changing relationship between the state, immigrants, and citizenship. Turning to case studies, we will examine four different types of receiving states, each confronted with a different form of migration: a traditional immigrant state, a post-colonial state, a non-traditional immigrant state, and a highly industrialized latecomer state.

 

Are human rights women's rights? Are women's rights human rights? This course examines the international human rights system (treaties, conventions, institutions and case law) through the lens of gender, exploring the ways in which they are organized around gendered assumptions that shape and limit their ability to reach and remedy the reality of women's lives. The course also considers the tension between international human rights law and local gender justice as well as how international human rights have evolved in response to the rise of global feminisms. The course explores these issues through a series of case studies examining such issues as sexual violence, human trafficking, religious freedom and women's access to education, health care and employment.

Subfield: International Relations

Note: This description is from Fall 2013