Undergraduate

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 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.

Instructor: Stephanie Nail

The overwhelming majority of governments throughout history have been dictatorial. Even the recent spread of democracy has not extirpated authoritarian rule: as of 2012 roughly one quarter of all countries are considered full-blown autocracies. Whatever the benefits of democracy, it seems dictatorship is here to stay. This course explores the characteristics and dynamics of non-democratic regimes: how and why they come about, what sustains them, why some people resist them and others do not, and how and why they decline and fall. We will explore a variety of examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Using films and novels in addition to political science literature, we will investigate how dictators maintain their power, how ordinary people react to repression, and the links between dictatorship and security and economic development.

Subfield: Comparative Politics

Note: Course description is from Summer 2014

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.  

Please note that this course description is from Spring 2015

Subfield: Comparative Politics

This course aims to provide an overview of the political history of China and Taiwan since 1949. We will compare and contrast the state building process in mainland China and Taiwan from 1950 to today. While both regimes were under the authoritarian rule at
the beginning of the 1950s, why did Taiwan democratize but not China? Meanwhile, does the democratic politics in Taiwan generate any implications for the democratic future of China? By comparing the state building process under the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) and Kuomintang (KMT), students will gain a better understanding of the theories and implications of the interaction between political development and economic development. The objective of this course is providing students a deeper understanding of theories of state building with regional knowledge of greater China.

We will start the course by briefly going over the political history in China and Taiwan before 1949. We then investigate the critical junctures of regime consolidation during the early state building period after 1949 in both mainland China and Taiwan. For the
remainder of the semester, we are going to compare and contrast different aspects of state building in China and Taiwan since 1950s. Due to the time limitation, we are only able to cover the following key aspects: party building, cultural policies, foreign influence,
economic transformation, and political reforms.

Instructor: Xiaobo Lü

Course number will change to PS143F prior to the first day of class.

This course examines patterns of political and economic change in Latin America over the course of the twentieth century.  Readings focus on industrialization and the advent of populism, the collapse of democracy and the rise of bureaucratic authoritarian regimes during the 1960s and 1970s, democratization, democratic consolidation, as well as economic liberalization and its aftermath. Readings focus on five country cases: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela.  Discussions frame the Latin American cases in terms of broader debates in comparative politics. 

Subfield:   Comparative Politics 

Students who took PS 191 "JUNIOR SEMINAR: LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS" with Professor Post in Spring 2014 cannot take this course due to the substantial similarity in course content. Students who took PS 191 "JUNIOR SEMINAR: The Latin American City: Politics and Policy" with Professor Post in Spring 2018 can take this course as there is no significant overlap in course content.

Since the earliest times, humanity has been on the move. Today, migration has reached a record high: the number of international migrants is estimated to be almost 272 million globally (equivalent to 3.5% of the world population), 51 million more than in 2010. Some people move in search of work or economic opportunities, others move to escape conflict, persecution, terrorism, or human rights violations. Still others move in response to the adverse effects of climate change, natural disasters, or other environmental factors. This course starts by exploring such migration reasons and the scholarly understanding of the politics of immigration. We place emphasis on the political economy and cultural identity origins of immigration policy, and on the factors shaping the public opinion toward immigration and immigrants. We then move to discussing the processes of immigrant incorporation---do immigrants and their children enter the mainstream societal institutions, what are the policies that promote the social, economic and political participation of immigrants, and what are the conditions that hinder immigrants participation; including nativistic reactions to immigration and demographic change. The course ends with a discussion of policy interventions designed to ameliorate the conditions hindering immigrants' incorporation. The course reviews seminal and cutting-edge research by political scientists, sociologists, economists, and demographers, and covers historical and contemporary cases from the U.S. and other Western nations.

Students will attend lectures, engage in reading-based participation and active learning, take two exams, and complete two short writing assignments; one on elements of a research paper and one on analysis of quantitative data. Students will start working on these writing assignments early in the course. Discussion sections are designed to introduce students to the elements of a research paper and to quantitative data analysis. Sections provide a forum for students to present advances on their writing assignments and to receive feedback from their peers and instructors.

Subfield: Comparative Politics

This course will examine the origins and forms of what a legal scholar once called an “odious scourge”: genocide. For years, genocide mainly referred to the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews during World War II. However, since the end of the Cold War events in Eastern Europe, Central Africa, and elsewhere have drawn scholars’ attention to genocide as a political phenomenon that may be studied across regions and time periods. Although ethical and policy concerns will underlie the discussion, as they do whenever genocide is the topic of study, our main objective will be to examine the determinants of genocide and related forms of mass violence.

This course was originally offered as PS124G in Spring 2022.

This course provides a deep dive into comparative political science. It takes the form of a “great books” course that focuses on outstanding, recently published texts. We will investigate how the authors formulated their research questions, conducted their field research, developed their causal explanations, found inspiration to persevere, and dealt with methodological challenges. We will also delve into the substantive issues that the books tackle, which include some of the most urgent issues in global politics. Each book we will study is an exemplary, inspiring work, and taken together the texts cover a vast range of substantive topics and geographical regions.

This course will cover a broad range of topics on the use of predictive and related algorithms in public policy. This will include specific case studies, how data are used in these tools, their possible benefits relative to status quo procedures, and the potential harms and ethics surrounding their use (e.g. issues of algorithmic bias). The course will include instruction on both concepts and methods. Students will learn how to critically think and communicate about the use of algorithms in public policy (and related topics) through a conceptual and theoretical lens, through illustrative case studies, through data science applications and exercises, and through collaborative group work in addition to individual assignments.