Undergraduate

This course explores the use of experiments to make causal (evidence-based) claims in American political behavior research. The course begins with the foundational methodology of different types of experiments (including field, lab, and survey experiments) where students will develop the skills to critically analyze experimental designs. Topics in this part of the course include the importance of randomization, internal and external validity, strengths and weaknesses of each method, and interpretation of results. The remainder of the course focuses on innovative experimental designs that allow us to investigate political behavior research questions such as how political attitudes can vary with physiological traits, the effects of the media and political advertisements on political opinions and voting, the effects of non-political events on voters evaluations of the government, the effects of partisanship on non-political decisions and evaluations, and more.

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

Women make up around 49.5% of the global population, yet they are strikingly underrepresented when it comes to political office. Looking at the global average, women only hold 24% of seats at the parliamentary level. The percent of women in office varies drastically between countries. For example, quota-based countries like Rwanda have 60% women in parliament, whereas countries with unique electoral systems like Lebanon only have 4.7%. This course looks to explain this variation, and further understand the consequences of it. We will focus on questions such as: How do electoral systems affect women’s access to elected office?  What, if any, are the negative effects of imposing gender quotas? If elected, do women promote greater substantive representation? We will look into the potential for gender-based discrimination among socialized gender roles, voters, political parties, campaign policies, and the media. Please be advised that this is not a course on feminist theory, but rather an investigation of the barriers to women’s representation and political participation.

Instructor: Melanie Phillips

The course will cover ethnic politics, broadly conceived with a particular focus on social movements, protests, civil disobedience and political violence. Related topics may include immigration, crime and the state, and urban politics. We will consider a range of questions including, how do stories influence our sense of self, community and nation? How do filmmaking techniques influence which people and issues become salient? How do aesthetic and narrative choices affect attitudes about the social order and who is deserving of power? Through close readings of films, social science, and media studies scholarship, this course will enable students to study key political science concepts, the institution of cinema, and how stories make meaning

Subfield:   Comparative Politics

The rise and fall of world communism was one of the great dramas of the 20^th century, born in wars (World War I, World II), offering an alternative modernity to that of the capitalist world, and ultimately succumbing to the pressures of Cold War, capitalist globalization, and popular disaffection.  The result was either systemic collapse (the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) or a fundamental alteration of key features of the communist system (China, Vietnam).  Beyond that, a few hangers-on remain: North Korea, Laos, and Cuba, while many non-ruling communist parties have transformed themselves in either a more-radical or more social-democratic direction.  We will trace communism’s origins in Marxism and Leninism, its victory in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 , its construction of an international sub-system (the “world communist movement”), its spread throughout Europe and Asia (plus Cuba), and its ultimate demise. What did communist revolutions, states, and non-ruling communist parties have in common, in both their domestic and international orientations?  How did they differ from each other?  Why did international communism fracture into competing models of domestic and foreign relations?  Why did the Soviet Union and, with it, the world communist system ultimately collapse?  Is there a future for new communist states?  Our analyses will be informed by both a “comparative politics” and an “international relations” perspective, with an eye to understanding one of the most tumultuous periods, and most powerful ideas, in modern history. 

Subfield:   Comparative Politics

Human rights constitute a central and inescapable ideal in the contemporary world. Governments around the globe routinely commit themselves to upholding human rights, and many states have signed landmark international human rights agreements. The promotion of human rights is, moreover, a fundamental principle of the United Nations and thus of the “international community,” such as it exists. However, and increasingly so, human rights are contested and under attack, as democracies globally are in retreat and autocracies denounce human rights as “Western” constructions. What future do human rights in global politics have? Are human rights in retreat or a bulwark against oppression? What power do human rights have and how does that power come about? This course is an introduction to the central concepts, laws, institutions, and debates in the field of human rights and is designed to answer those, and other, key questions. In the first half of the course, we will examine foundational questions in the field, such as: What are human rights? What are the philosophical, religious, and historical origins of human rights? What are the main international human rights agreements in international law? How do human rights treaties work, and is international human rights law effective? What are the main international institutions that handle human rights? How are human rights enforced outside of the U.N. system? What are regional human rights systems? Are human rights universal? And what role do non-governmental organizations play in this field? In the second half of the course, we will focus on two central and complex human rights issues. First, we will examine the prevention and mitigation of mass atrocities. We will examine the variety of policy tools available to domestic and international actors to mitigate or stop mass violations of human rights. As part of our study, we will explore several cases, including Iraq, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Libya, Syria, and China. Second, we will examine various approaches to accounting for past human rights abuses, including international criminal courts, foreign courts, domestic courts, truth commissions, and “traditional” forms of justice. Again, we will focus on particular cases, such as the former Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Chile, Rwanda, South Africa, The Gambia, and Colombia—among others. A central proposition throughout the course is that human rights cannot be separated from politics. Indeed, we cannot understand either why human rights abuses happen or how and why human rights have the power to improve human welfare without examining the political contexts in which efforts to mitigate abuses take place. Human rights are inseparable from the political, even if they are designed to be outside of politics. We will wrestle with that central paradox.

It is increasingly recognized that for societies to move on after widespread human rights and humanitarian abuses some kind of reconciliation process is necessary. What does reconciliation mean at the national vs. the personal level? What institutions and processes work best to encourage reconciliation? What role do truth commissions and trials play in this process? Are these processes best dealt with nationally or should they be led by an international body? This course will start by examining the concept of reconciliation and then look at case studies including Germany and Japan after WWII, Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge, Argentina and the Dirty War, Chile after Pinochet, South Africa and Apartheid, the Rwandan genocide, and the war in Yugoslavia. Students will complete a research project on a case study of their choice.

Subfield: International Relations

Discussion sections 103 and 104 will be delivered remotely.

The Middle East seems plagued by endless strife:  wars, civil wars, insurgencies, terrorism.  Is that perception true?  If so, why is this region so conflict-prone?   What factors motivate, constrain, and shape these conflicts?  How can policy makers influence war in the Middle East?  This undergraduate lecture class takes on these and other thorny questions.  It is a sequel to PS124A (“War!”) and builds on insights from that class to explore war in a particular part of the world.

This is not a class on Middle East politics.  It is an IR class focused less on the politics of particular states and more on relations between states, especially violent relations.  This is not a class on the Arab-Israeli conflict or on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Both are important cases of war in the Middle East and will be explored alongside other significant conflicts in the region. 

Most importantly:  This is not a class designed to defend a specific claim or theory about conflict in the Middle East.  On the contrary, this is a social science class:   My goal is to teach the importance of exploring pressing policy questions by testing the strengths and weaknesses of competing and often contradictory theories in an even-handed manner.  At the same time, students will be expected to reach their own conclusions and produce pragmatic recommendations in the form of policy memoranda.

This class begins, like its counterpart, with a historical overview of war in the region.  The second part of the class introduces theories that complement and elaborate on theories from PS124A:  arguments about the relationship between war and resources, religion, authoritarianism, civil-military relations, territorial disputes, sovereignty, and power.  In the third part of the course, we will explore current policy concerns related to conflict in the region:  Nuclear proliferation, terrorism, the civil war in Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drone warfare, and the U.S. role in the region.

Subfield: International Relations

Billions of dollars have been given to developing countries over the past sixty years, yet critics argue that aid is ineffectual or, worse yet, harmful to recipients. In this course, we will examine the politics surrounding the delivery of international aid, exploring who decides the aid agenda, which countries receive what aid and how aid interacts with the political dynamics of recipient communities once it is delivered. To do so, the course employs the case-study method, which asks students to collectively agree on a course of action for a real-world case study. The case method highlights the strategic and ethical complexities of aid work, encouraging students to develop their ability to articulate clear, persuasive arguments and to engage in complex negotiations with their classmates.

Political thought from (roughly) the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, including Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Jacobs, Marx, Freud, Weber, Gandhi, Luxemburg, and Lenin.