Undergraduate

This course explores the politics of nationalism, identity politics, and violent conflict in the fifteen Soviet successor states.  The first half of the course will be devoted to theoretical approaches to ethnicity, nationality, and religious identity in political science; the treatment of the “nationality question” and religion in Marxist-Leninist theory; the history of Soviet federalism, “nationalities policy,” and state atheism; nationalist mobilization and religious revivalism in the Gorbachev period; and the political dynamics behind the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991.  In the second half of the course, we will turn to the role of ethno-nationalism and religious identities in the post-Soviet period; problems of post-communist nation and state building; and the competing logics of state sovereignty, national self-determination, and autonomy. Case studies will include the conflicts in Chechnya and Russia's North Caucasus, the Russo-Georgia War of 2008, and current conflict in Ukraine.

Students who took PS 191 "Junior Seminar: Nationalism, Identities, and Conflict in the Soviet Successor State" with Professor Walker cannot take this course due to the substantial similarity in course content.

The term “dysfunctional politics” has become a commonplace in our public dialogue, one used almost instinctively to characterize any of a multitude of shortcomings in the workings of American democracy.  Yet behind this widespread dismay if not outright contempt for the contemporary state of American politics and governance lie glaring differences, often passionately held, over just what is wrong, who is responsible, and whether anything can and should be done to fix it.  The seminar is designed to clarify and assess these differences.We will probe the fit, historically and contemporaneously, between Madison’s constitutional design and the party system that while not mentioned in the Constitution quickly became a central and essential instrument for linking popular elections and representative government.   Topics meriting special attention will include the ideological polarization of the parties; strategic oppositional politics within the governing process; affective partisanship; the contributions of ordinary citizens, activists, and political elites; the demonization and denial of legitimacy of one party by the other; increasing legislative gridlock during periods of divided party government; the impact of hyperpartisanship on the courts and the executive branch; the nationalization of politics in a federalized system; the changing coalitional bases of the parties; partisan manipulation of electoral rules, the impact of money; the role of the media, old and new; and the substance and politics of political reform.

This seminar will feature not lectures and exams but presentations by and discussions among  students, guided by the instructor and based on a set of required readings, student blogs, and a research paper.  It will be comprehensive and challenging, drawing on scholarly research to shed light on issues of major public import.

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:   American Politics

Instructor: Thomas Mann

Description: 

This junior seminar in political theory seeks to investigate the concept of tyranny in the history of political thought.  Major topics for study in this seminar will include the proper scope of political obligation, the permissibility of resistance and disobedience, and principles of constitutional design.  We will begin with a study of the classical origins of the concept of tyranny in Greek and Roman antiquity, in such writers as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Tacitus.  With this background, we shall then proceed to investigate the usage of the classical analysis of tyranny in medieval and early modern thought, such as Aquinas, Bartolus, Machiavelli, and Calvin.  The seminar will pay special attention to radical theories of resistance and tyrannicide, which emerged in close connection with the French Wars of Religion and the English Civil War, such as the French Monarchomachs and English republicans.  The course concludes by exploring the place of tyranny in modern constitutional thought, such as Montesquieu, Madison, and Tocqueville.

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:   Political Theory

Several countries in East Asia have been categorized as ‘developmental states,’ astonishing the political world by their governments’ ability to orchestrate economic changes as well as stunning the economic world by their rapid transformations into sophisticated industrial democracies. Most typically noted as examples are Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. For long periods in the 1970s-1990s their political economies resembled one another in many ways: continuity of conservative political leadership, close ties between business and politics, strong bureaucratic powers, tight domestic monopolies over finance, limited social welfare state provisions, a focus on exports, and rapid industrial transformation and high growth. Less well examined is what has happened to these three in the face of two big external changes that challenged prior political and economic arrangements, most notably an end to East Asian security bipolarity and the challenge to national financial insulation by global capital movements.

This seminar will examine both development and its (possible) dismantling. Concentrating on the three cases of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the seminar will engage a series of integrated readings on several key topics on both facets. Each student will be expected to write 4-5 high quality 6-8 page papers dealing with various week’s readings.

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

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

Note: This description is from Spring 2015

This seminar is designed to explore what we know about the interaction between the American political system and the American economic system. We will approach the topic from multiple vantage points – theory, including classic and contemporary work; comparative analysis; historical analyses of the American experience; and investigations of recent and on-going political conflicts over health care, financial reform, and other matters. The goal is to better understand why the political economy of the United States is distinctive, and to shed light on the broader question of how – and for whose benefit – the American political system operates.

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:   American Politics

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

The course provides a critical and analysis of the political circumstances, political behavior, and the activities and consequences of Latinos   ( or 'Hispanics') within the governmental and political system of the United States.     Latinos became the nation's largest minority group in 2005 and are also the largest minority group in U.S. elementary/secondary schools.   For these and other reasons the situation of Latinos has broad social and political significance.

Subfield:   American Politics

NOTE: This description is from Fall 2013