Graduate

This course provides an introduction to the methodology of game theory and related modeling techniques, with a focus on applications in the study of politics.  The goal of the course is to get students familiar with the basic tools and frameworks of formal models as used in political science research.  This will enable you to be a more-informed reader of the growing body of literature that uses these methods or that tests predictions derived with them.  It should also prove useful in structuring your thinking about political actors and outcomes even when you are not explicitly using a formal model.  This course will also provide a starting point for students who hope to pursue more advanced training and even to use formal theory in their own future research.

Discussion sections meet Fridays 12-1:30pm in SOCS791.

Social scientists often rely on nonrandom samples, whether due to nonresponse, convenience sampling, or practical design considerations, when studying descriptive or causal relationships.  This class focuses on design and analysis techniques that allow researchers to draw generalizable inferences from non representative data.  In particular, we will study sampling and randomization design; weighting and modeling methods; and sensitivity analyses with applications to survey analysis and external validity of experiments.

Discussion sections meet Fridays 12-1:30pm in SOCS202.

The focus of this course is on statistical methods for causal inference.

Discussion sections meet Wednesdays 2-3:30pm in SOCS791.

This graduate seminar on international political economy will cover a variety of core topics in the field of IPE. These include trade, international institutions, the role of multinational corporations in politics, foreign direct investment, monetary policy, sovereign debt, foreign aid, and environmental politics.

Plato's Laws has long stood in the shadow of its more celebrated predecessor, the Republic.  In recent years, however, scholarly interest in the work has been surging.  While taking recent scholarship into account, this seminar will focus on making sense of the Laws in its own terms as well as in relation to the Republic.  What did Plato seek to achieve in writing this later work?  Who is he writing for?  Is the work a utopia?  A practical guide?  A blend of the two? Is it a meditation on law and law-giving?  On social control of culture more generally?  If it is all of these things and more, how are its themes connected?

Themes will include performance culture (chorality, the symposium); the presence and absence of Socrates; persuasion vs. compulsion; checks and balances and the mixed constitution; and religion as a foundation for society.  The seminar aims to be of interest to a broad audience of classicists and students in political and legal theory.  Our common text for the class will be in English (Griffith translation), but students who are able to do so are encouraged to integrate reference to the Greek text into our discussions.  Students who have not read the Republic will find it useful to do so before the seminar begins.

Co-Instructor: G.R.F. Ferrari

Class will meet in DOE308C - Doe Library.

A weekly seminar on political thought from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. Early modern political theorist, typically including Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau.

The theme for Spring 2024 will be Natural Law.

Why do political cleavages often divide along lines of race and ethnicity? Does human psychology tend towards ‘groupism’? How do government institutions like schools, police and elections increase or decrease the salience of various ethnic and religious boundaries? This course investigates the relationship between identity, groups and politics in the U.S. and around the world. We will consider theories of group identity development; assess empirical approaches to the study of racial and ethnic groups in politics; evaluate intersections of salient identities and look at how politically relevant aspects of identity can be measured for conducting original research.

This course provides an introduction to research design in comparative politics; it is the second semester of the two-semester introductory graduate sequence for the comparative sub-field.  We will focus on various topics relevant to doing research, such as how to formulate research questions; develop concepts and measures; bolster the validity of descriptive and causal inferences; and use various qualitative and quantitative methods in the service of diverse substantive agenda.  Developing the ability to critique research is one important objective.  However, the primary goal of the course is to provide a first foundation for actually doing research.

Note: This description is from Spring 2015