graduate seminars
PLSC 404: Selected Problems in American Politics -- Women and Politics
Professor Matland
W 7:00pm / LSC
This special topics course focuses on women and politics in the United States. The class starts with a focus on the impact of the women’s movement, including the fight to win the right to vote. We also look at how women vote, how women act as political candidates, and whether women as members of the legislature legislate differently than men. Today, women hold eight out of 50 governorships, eighteen out of one hundred Senate seats, and 70 out of 435 House seats. There are two major questions that come out of these simple facts. Why are women so poorly represented? And does it matter? We spend a considerable amount of time on both of these questions within the American context.
PLSC 425: African Politics
Professor Schraeder
T 7:00pm / LSC
This seminar focuses on the diverse field of African politics, which incorporates 53 countries. During the course of our discussions, we will focus on how noted African studies specialists contribute to our understanding of trends at the continental level (i.e., encompassing all 53 countries) and the sub-regional level (i.e., individual regions of East, Southern, Central, West, and North Africa). Among the topics to be examined include the long-term impacts of colonialism, the competing roles of class, ethnicity, and gender, democratic transitions and experiments in multiparty politics, the evolving roles of the African military, state, and civil society, the role of ideology in national development, the impact of foreign influences on the African continent, and domestic influences on African foreign policy.
PLSC 430: Theories of International Politics
Professor Grigorescu
Th 7:00pm / LSC
This course introduces students to the some of the more frequently cited works in international relations. It explores central concepts and theories employed by political scientists to explain how world politics functions. In order to illustrate various concepts and theories, the course will use examples from different areas of the world and from different moments in history. It will especially rely on examples from events that are still unfolding.
PLSC 449: 19th Century Political Thought
Professor Mayer
T 4:15pm / LSC
Toward what future are the forces of history carrying us? Toward progress or decay? Toward freedom or slavery? These questions seemed to obsess the nineteenth-century mind. To a greater extent than during the centuries that preceded or followed it, political thought in the hundred years after the French Revolution tended to be historicist or concerned with uncovering the deepest laws of history. In this seminar we will critically review some of the most important arguments about the movement of history published during this era of social, economic, and political change. Works by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Tocqueville, Spencer, and Nietzsche will be examined. This is a combined graduate/ undergraduate course.
PLSC 476: Techniques of Political Analysis II
Professor Mahler
M 7:00pm / LSC
This is an intermediate course in the application of statistical methods to political analysis. The primary focus of the course is the theory and practice of multiple regression, the most important statistical technique in the social sciences. Among the specific topics examined are the assumptions underlying regression and the consequences of violating them; analysis of residuals; collinearity; dummy regression; analysis of variance and covariance; hierarchical regression; nonlinearity and nonadditivity; pooled cross-sectional/time series analysis; probit/logit analysis; structural equations; and factor analysis. Emphasis throughout the course will be on practical applications and extensive use will be made of SPSS and Stata, computer programs commonly used in social science analysis. Prerequisite: the successful completion of Political Science 475, Techniques of Political Science I, or the instructor's permission.
PLSC 520: Seminar in Comparative Politics
Professor Avdeyeva
W 4:15pm / LSC
Why do policies on issues like social welfare, education, and immigration differ markedly from nation to nation? Can we find the answers in contrasting cultures, state institutions, societal organizations, or some mix of all of these explanations? This course provides you with an opportunity to learn more about how public policies in other nations differ from our own while simultaneously challenging you to think about why they differ in the ways they do. The course focuses on policies in areas including those listed above with examples coming primarily from advanced industrialized nations like Britain, the U.S., Japan, and Sweden. This graduate seminar is designed to introduce the sub-field of comparative public policy both thematically and theoretically and give students a basic map of comparative research in public policy. The reading schedule is organized around main subjects of inquiry that constitute the comparative public policy sub-field. The goal of the course is to familiarize students with some of the most basic and important research in comparative public policy and to develop tools useful for evaluating work in the discipline.
PLSC 404: Selected Problems in American Politics -- Women and Politics
Professor Matland
W 7:00pm / LSC
This special topics course focuses on women and politics in the United States. The class starts with a focus on the impact of the women’s movement, including the fight to win the right to vote. We also look at how women vote, how women act as political candidates, and whether women as members of the legislature legislate differently than men. Today, women hold eight out of 50 governorships, eighteen out of one hundred Senate seats, and 70 out of 435 House seats. There are two major questions that come out of these simple facts. Why are women so poorly represented? And does it matter? We spend a considerable amount of time on both of these questions within the American context.
PLSC 425: African Politics
Professor Schraeder
T 7:00pm / LSC
This seminar focuses on the diverse field of African politics, which incorporates 53 countries. During the course of our discussions, we will focus on how noted African studies specialists contribute to our understanding of trends at the continental level (i.e., encompassing all 53 countries) and the sub-regional level (i.e., individual regions of East, Southern, Central, West, and North Africa). Among the topics to be examined include the long-term impacts of colonialism, the competing roles of class, ethnicity, and gender, democratic transitions and experiments in multiparty politics, the evolving roles of the African military, state, and civil society, the role of ideology in national development, the impact of foreign influences on the African continent, and domestic influences on African foreign policy.
PLSC 430: Theories of International Politics
Professor Grigorescu
Th 7:00pm / LSC
This course introduces students to the some of the more frequently cited works in international relations. It explores central concepts and theories employed by political scientists to explain how world politics functions. In order to illustrate various concepts and theories, the course will use examples from different areas of the world and from different moments in history. It will especially rely on examples from events that are still unfolding.
PLSC 449: 19th Century Political Thought
Professor Mayer
T 4:15pm / LSC
Toward what future are the forces of history carrying us? Toward progress or decay? Toward freedom or slavery? These questions seemed to obsess the nineteenth-century mind. To a greater extent than during the centuries that preceded or followed it, political thought in the hundred years after the French Revolution tended to be historicist or concerned with uncovering the deepest laws of history. In this seminar we will critically review some of the most important arguments about the movement of history published during this era of social, economic, and political change. Works by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Tocqueville, Spencer, and Nietzsche will be examined. This is a combined graduate/ undergraduate course.
PLSC 476: Techniques of Political Analysis II
Professor Mahler
M 7:00pm / LSC