POLI_SCI 403-0-20 Introduction to Probability and Statistics
This course provides the opportunity to develop skills to empirically evaluate questions about the world. As social scientists, we seek to understand the world around us and our research often involves the analysis of data. During this quarter, we will work to develop the ability to summarize and analyze this data while exploring the pitfalls that can occur in careless research. Topics include probability theory, experimental and theoretical derivation of sampling distributions, hypothesis testing, and analysis of variance. Some familiarity with algebra and calculus will prove helpful and familiarity with the concepts from the department’s math prefresher course will be presumed. Please have a decent calculator (nothing too fancy but your phone calculator will likely be insufficient) and plan to bring it regularly to class with you. If you’re looking for a specific recommendation, something like the TI-30XS would be helpful (price: $15). We’ll often do calculations in class and on the exams.
This course is about linear models, the major workhorses of statistics for description and prediction, and one of the most common quantitative methods in political science. We will use a linear models framework to discuss significance tests, graphical displays, tests of assumptions, interpretation of coefficients and interactions, and questions of causal inference. We will also work through statistical computing skills such that students can use all of the above in their own work.
Experiments are a central methodology in political science. Scholars from every subfield regularly turn to experiments. Practitioners rely on experimental evidence in evaluating social programs, policies, institutions, and information provision. The design, implementation, and analysis of experiments raise a variety of distinct epistemological and methodological challenges. This is particularly true in political science due to the breadth of the discipline, the varying contexts in which experiments are implemented (e.g., laboratory, survey, field), and the distinct methods employed (e.g., psychological or economic approaches to experimentation). This class will review the challenges to experimentation, discuss how to implement experiments, and survey prominent applications. The class also will touch on recent methodological advances in experiments and ongoing debates about the reliability of experimental studies. To do so, we will read parts of a new, yet to be published, volume on experimental methods.
POLI_SCI 410-0-20 American Political Institutions and Behavior
The American Politics Field Seminar will give students exposure to trends in the empirical study of American politics. The course will cover current debates in the fields of political behavior, public opinion, legislative politics, presidential politics, American political development, and race and politics.
Contrasting approaches to the study of voting, theories of the survey response, psychological theories of mental process, models of public opinion, dispositional explanations of behavior, political participation, and mathematical models of social interaction.
The historical construction of politics in the U.S. Topics include liberalism and conservatism; state-building and party-building; industrialization and the welfare state; political traditions, regimes, and orders; electoral realignments; constitutional development; social movements; and racial politics. Historical-institutional themes of timing and sequence, critical junctures, path dependence, policy feedback, political entrepreneurship, and intercurrence.
Contemporary international relations theory. Basic concepts on the philosophy of social science and substantive theories of international relations, including neorealism, neoliberalism, marxism, and constructivism.
This graduate seminar surveys classic and frontier research in Comparative and International Political Economy. Half of the course focuses on the main analytical traditions in IPE (emphasizing interests and material incentives, power, institutions, and ideational factors) and explores the major research topics in the field (international trade, finance, foreign investment and sovereign debt, and immigration). The other half deals with CPE topics, including national varieties of capitalism, redistribution, institutions and economic performance, and development.
The seminar will be of interest to graduate students and advanced undergraduates with interests in International Relations and Comparative Politics, in addition to students from other disciplines (e.g. economic sociology).
POLI_SCI 450-0-20 Contemporary Theory and Research in Comparative Politics
This seminar exposes students to some of the foundational works in Comparative Politics. We will read Karl Marx, Max Weber, Perry Anderson, Karl Polanyi, Joseph Schumpeter, Barrington Moore, Theda Skocpol, Sam Huntington, Jim Scott, and Ben Anderson. The focus is on the generation and architecture of major theories in the field. The concepts and analyses contained in these readings provide essential building blocks for you to pursue further reading on your own and in other courses in comparative politics and political economy.
POLI_SCI 454-0-20 Social Movements and Mobilization
This graduate-level seminar explores the political conditions and processes shaping social and political mobilization, examining major theories from the fields of sociology and political science about social movements: collective challenges to authority that aim to change society or institute structural changes in an existing state or states.
POLI_SCI 460-0-20 Comparative Politics Proseminar II
Survey of major topics in comparative politics. Contemporary state of the subfield, its evolution, and emerging research questions and controversies. Themes include institutions, identities, the state, regimes, inequality.
POLI_SCI 471-0-20 Game Theory: Math Models of Individual Political Behavior
An introduction to game theory. Topics covered include individual decision-making under uncertainty; normal and extensive form games; games of incomplete information; repeated games. Applications to voting theory, collective action and institutional choice.
POLI_SCI 483-0-20 American Political Behavior Graduate Workshop
Key debates and developments in research on American Political Behavior; the development, presentation and critique of student-generated original research.
POLI_SCI 490-0-20 Political Theories of Membership
