How can we read, write, and critically think (imagine) about African politics and society? The course presents contemporary ethnography on African politics and society during the postcolonial era, emphasizing the multiplicity, complexities, and diversity of African ideas, imaginations, practices, and experiences, in along with the variety of national and international factors that either influence or are impacted by them. Upon completing the course, students will have the essential critical thinking abilities and analytical tools required to recognize and challenge reductionist and biased narratives concerning Africa.

Focused on analytical models of political institutions, this course is organized around canonical models and their applications. These include: voting models, menu auctions, models of reputation and cheap talk games. These models are used to explain patterns of participation in elections, institutions of congress, lobbying, payments to special interest groups and other observed phenomena.

The Covid-19 pandemic and war in the Ukraine have demonstrated how suddenly life can be disrupted and also how dramatically entrepreneurial action can make a difference. The world's biggest problems are looking for new organizational and operational models that combine the advantages of business, government, and NGOs and can deliver effective responses. This course looks beyond entrepreneurship in profit motivated industries such as technology and financial services to the more complicated challenge of achieving social and policy objectives through entrepreneurial action.

In this seminar we will examine the variety of responses adopted in Latin America to the need for an energy transition. We begin with an overview of climate change on a global scale and its impact on Latin America. We follow with a general discussion of important sectoral issues that arise in any energy transition and different policy responses that seem to be available, examining their pros and cons/costs and benefits. The final two weeks consider various 'ideal' policy options for an energy transition suited to national situations.

This course examines the political dimensions of Islam. This will involve a study of the nature of Islamic political theory, the relationship between the religious and political establishments, the characteristics of an Islamic state, the radicalization of Sunni and Shi'i thought, and the compatibility of Islam and the nation-state, democracy, and constitutionalism, among other topics. Students will be introduced to the complex and polemical phenomenon of political Islam. The examples will be drawn mainly, though not exclusively, from cases and writings from the Middle East.

This seminar examines the evolution of American diplomacy and military policy in the Middle East from the late Cold War through the "Unipolar movement" and 9/11 to the very recent past. Given the militarization of American policy, it pays particular attention to the use of force. It asks why military force has become the defining instrument of US foreign policy in this region, seeks to evaluate the efficacy of America's military interventions, and to identify the sources of American conduct. Prior coursework in international relations and Middle Eastern history is beneficial but there are no prerequisites.

In a world where interests and values often conflict, how should societies be governed? Which form of government is best? Is the form we have in America the best there is? This introductory course examines these and other vital questions of political theory. We will seek answers in the writings of ancient and modern theorists including Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu and the American Founders. We will also seek to understand important concepts such as virtue, moderation, justice, and order.

An introduction to the institutions and political processes of American government and democracy. Topics will include the Constitution and American political tradition, federalism, political institutions, elections and representation, interest groups and social movements, civil rights and liberties, and the politics of public policy.

Why do states exist? Why are some democracies, and others autocracies? And why are some countries rich, while others are poor? This course introduces students to the study of domestic politics of other countries, or comparative politics, by focusing on topics such as economic development, democratization and regime change, political institutions, income redistribution, and political representation. Readings on Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas are used to provide an introduction to politics in different regions of the world and to show how cross-national comparisons provide insight into contemporary political outcomes.

POL 300 aims to introduce students to elements of good research design in political science. POL 300 consists of three components: The weekly lecture covers topics in research design. The weekly precept discusses lecture materials and prepares students to complete problem sets. The practicum applies principles of research design to one of several specific topic areas. Practica are led by faculty instructors with expertise in the topic area who will teach students how to design and carry out a specific independent research project. POL 300 is open to Politics juniors only and designed to complement the Fall Junior Independent Work requirement.

An introduction to theories of social justice and examination of their implications in areas of contemporary social and political controversy. The first half of the course introduces the problem of social justice and examines two classic positions, as articulated by John Locke (name associated with liberalism, property, and capitalism) and Karl Marx (name associated with the critique of capitalism). The second half of the course focuses on contemporary theories of justice. We will read authors such as John Rawls and Robert Nozick, and examine controversies over poverty, gender, racial injustice, equal opportunity, and environmental justice.

What, if any, norms of justice apply to the institutions and practice of world politics? Topics may include "political realism" and skepticism about global morality; just wars and justice in warfare; ethics of humanitarian intervention; the nature and basis of human rights; world poverty and global distributive justice; climate change; democracy and accountability in global institutions. Readings chosen from recent works in political philosophy.

A study of the structure of the American constitutional system and of the meaning of key constitutional provisions. Students will critically evaluate competing theories of, and approaches to, constitutional interpretation.

This course provides a realistic introduction to how public policy is made in the United States. It examines how people and political institutions come together to create and implement public policy. The course combines cutting edge social science with cases, simulations, and role playing exercises to provide students with concrete skills and practical tools for actual policy making.

Experiments to study and influence politics are increasingly widespread, partly because they identify cause-and-effects that are not possible with polls and other data. No longer confined to the lab, political scientists and campaign operatives use new technology to conduct experiments on thousands of voters in real elections. Massive political experiments have been conducted on Facebook, by mail and telephone, but is it ethical to influence politics in pursuit of new knowledge? What have experiments taught us about voting, identity, and representation in America? This class will cover these and other aspects of using experiments in politics.

African Americans in the United States have encountered myriad barriers to their quest for inclusion. Drawing on a mix of history and social science, we will come to understand why certain segments of America oppose the full inclusion of African Americans. We will also discuss the political strategies undertaken by the Black community to combat social, political, and economic injustices. The first half of the course will focus on historical antecedents such as the civil rights movement and the Black Power movement. The second half of the course will focus on the nature of contemporary racial attitudes in the 21st century.

Would universal health insurance improve the health of the poor? Do patterns of arrests in US cities show evidence of racial profiling? What accounts for who votes and their choice of candidates? This course will teach students how to address these and other social science questions by analyzing quantitative data. The course introduces basic principles of statistical inference and programming skills for data analysis. The goal is to provide students with the foundation necessary to analyze data in their own research and to become critical consumers of statistical claims made in the news media, in policy reports, and in academic research.

This course starts students on the path to asking and answering their own research questions for political science and public policy. We will think carefully about causal claims, and how to assess them with real world data. We will learn how to use regression, quasi-experiments and machine learning for inference and prediction. This includes knowing the limits - practical and ethical - in working with such techniques. The course is aimed particularly at those writing quantitative Junior Papers/Senior Theses, and others seeking to consume, produce and communicate empirical research. We will use the R language and statistical environment.

Examines the role of political institutions in facilitating or hindering economic prosperity. We start with the basic tools of political economy - collective action, elections, and delegation. These tools are then applied to the problems of controlling rulers, and the persistence of inefficiency.

This course investigates the politics of protest and revolution, examining the conditions under which protest movements emerge, their choice of tactics, the effects of repression and concessions, and the determinants of movement success. The second part of the course focuses on revolutions, examining the forms they assume and the conditions under which they develop and prove successful. Examples discussed include the civil rights, women's and environmental movements; the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions; the collapse of communism; and the "color revolutions," the Arab Spring, and other waves of revolution in the contemporary world.

This course provides an overview of China's political system. We will begin with a brief historical overview of China's political development from 1949 to the present. The remainder of the course will examine the key challenges facing the current generation of CCP leadership, focusing on prospects for democratization and political reform. Among other topics, we will examine: factionalism and political purges; corruption; avenues for political participation; village elections; public opinion; protest movements and dissidents; co-optation of the business class; and media and internet control.

This course introduces the study of African politics. The lectures briefly review the social and historical context of contemporary political life. They then profile some of the changes of the early post-Independence period, the authoritarian turn of the 1970s and 80s, and the second liberation of the 1990s and 2000s, before turning to some contemporary challenges (e.g., conflict resolution, land tenure, natural resource management, public goods provision, climate resilience, health, urbanization). Each session introduces a major analytical debate, theories, and African views. Broadly comparative; some special attention to selected countries.

Why do states and peoples go to war? Conversely, how can war be avoided? This course surveys some of the most important explanations--including human nature, the anarchic international system, domestic politics, imperialism, technology, and nationalism--and evaluates them in light of historical wars, and of past crises resolved short of war. Cases include the Peloponnesian War, the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, World War II in both Europe and Asia, the Cuban missile crisis, and ex-Yugoslavia's wars.

This course explores America's role in the world. The goal of the class is to help students critically analyze the major dynamics shaping U.S. foreign policy today, as well as to understand theoretical perspectives on foreign policymaking. There are three major elements: a study of the history of American foreign relations since the 19th century; an analysis of the causes of American foreign policy such as the international system, public opinion, and the media; and a discussion of the major policy issues in contemporary U.S. foreign policy, including terrorism, the rise of China, and climate change.

Debates in political theory typically revolve around questions relating to ends, such as "What does a perfectly just society look like?" But very few societies have fully achieved the ends set out by political theorists and much real-world political practice is about enacting means in pursuit of a given end. This course is about social change and the means deployed to achieve it. We will examine the philosophical questions surrounding means such as violence, disobedience, strikes, boycotts, and nudging. Examining these means will involve engaging with some of the most important and enduring problems in political theory.

This seminar covers the history and stakes of debates over the meaning, virtues, and vices of capitalism and the free market. It proceeds broadly in two veins. First, students will read canonical modern texts debating the market economy and related issues, including commerce, luxury, liberalism, and equality. Alongside these historical texts, students will read more recent attempts of philosophers, economists, and historians to offer theoretical accounts of the origins and evolution of the capitalist economy, with particular attention to developments following the second world war.

Did lobbying corrupt the implementation of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) intended to provide financial relief to small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis? Did campaign contributions from the real estate industry exacerbate housing bubbles in the early 2000s, leading to the eventual mortgage default crisis in 2008-09? This course will help students critically assess claims made about the role of money in American politics in public discourse and policy debates. Students will learn about cutting-edge social science research, and interact with guest speakers in government, non-profits, and the private sector where feasible.

Appointments to the United States Supreme Court are now central events in American political life. Every vacancy unleashes a bitter struggle between the parties and among organized interests. Then, once the seat is filled, new justices typically vote in highly predictable ways. In this seminar we will review what happened over the last 90 years but also why, with what consequences, and what the future likely holds. Because the story of Supreme Court appointment politics largely reflects the emergence of a new American politics, understanding appointment politics offers a way to understand the new world of American politics.

Violent non-state actors have become an increasingly prominent security concern in international relations. The events of September 11, 2001 quickly moved terrorism and insurgency to the forefront of U.S. security concerns. While the threat from violent non-state actors is relatively new as a top security concern for the U.S., many countries and regions of the world have long dealt with severe forms of political violence as a top security concern and a factor in everyday life. In this course, we examine violent non-state actors from several distinct angles and develop a solid understanding of their historical role.

This course will examine the history, contemporary reality, and likely future of higher education, especially in the United States but also abroad. We will consider the changing and often conflicting ideals and aspirations of parents, students, instructors, and administrators from classical Rome to Christian institutions in the European Middle Ages to American athletic powerhouses today, seeking answers to fundamental practical, economic, and political questions that provoke vigorous contemporary debate.

This course covers recent research on the role of political institutions (macro and micro) in economic development. We first introduce the concept of political distortions (e.g., patronage and state capture) that allow those in power to distort market competition and public investments. We then provide a wide range of reforms that may curb such distortions and improve democratic governance. This includes campaign finance laws, improvement in government transparency, bureaucratic reforms, and public deliberation. The course will be imbedded in the activities of the Institutional Experimentation Lab (IEL) of the Department of Politics.

Basic mathematical concepts essential for formal and quantitative analysis in political science research. Course prepares students for advanced courses offered in the Department, e.g., POL 573-576. Topics include calculus, linear algebra, and probability theory. Some applications to political science are introduced. The course is aimed for both students with little exposure to mathematics and those who have taken some but wish to gain a more solid foundation. No prerequisite.

Statehood proper requires citizens to know how roughly they stand relative to authorities and other citizens. But what is needed if the state is to be a just republic? First, demands of civic or democratic justice on the standing citizens ought to have vis-à-vis the authorities under decision-maker law; second, demands of social justice on the standing they ought vis-à-vis one another under decision-taker law. On the first count, we explore issues in constitutional and democratic theory; on the second, questions related to distributive justice in general and some particular areas like labor justice and criminal justice.

Socialism is an ideal with a long and complicated history. This seminar examines its origins in the nineteenth century. Drawing on both primary sources and historical scholarship, this course examines socialism as it evolved over its first several decades, above all in France and England, and stresses the crucial role of the French Revolution in socialism's rise. Themes include: harmony versus conflict in the socialist imaginary; the competition between hierarchy and equality in socialists' vision; the contested place of the state; socialism and religion; and the critique of markets.

A general introduction to the field of comparative politics, with an emphasis on principal theoretical approaches and major problems and theories. POL 521 is the first course of a 2-semester sequence of 'The Study of Comparative Politics'. It focuses on the macro foundations of political institutions and regimes: state formation, identity and nation formation; democratization; authoritarianism; political violence and contentious politics; collective action and social movements; theories of political change and political modernization.

This course provides students with an intensive overview of the rapidly evolving geopolitical, economic, and ideological rivalry between the world's two most powerful states: the United States and China. The course is intended both for masters students intending to pursue careers in the analysis, formulation, and execution of public policy, and for PhD candidates, many of whom are involved in research and teaching.

This course is designed to survey and critically discuss contemporary political economy; that is, the set of existing theories that model the impact of political conflict and political institutions on economic performance. The course is structured around the following main issues: the causes of growth; the relationship between openness, political institutions and economic policy-making, the causes and consequences of politically enforced redistribution. The course is analytical in its theoretical perspective and comparative from a methodological point of view.

Clientelism has evolved from the analysis of archaic and mostly agrarian political structures to a more general study of opportunistic electoral strategies. It has also become a central debate in comparative politics, on how to turn democratic reforms into better governance and effective development policies. The goal of this course is to document and analyze clientelism and discuss conditions under which it can be replaced with or evolve in programmatic, universalistic and more efficient electoral and policy-making practices.

Topics typically include: design of judiciaries and legal systems, doctrinal struggles within judicial hierarchies, bargaining on collegial courts, judicial selection, judicial independence and the rule of law, judicial-legislative relations, interest group activism and rights creation, judicial federalism, politics of administrative law, civil liberties in war time, social consequences of judicial activism.

Part of a two-course sequence of the core curriculum in American politics. Provides an introductory survey of American political behavior through a sample of major theories and methods in the study of citizens' views and actions regarding politics.

A general introduction to the field of international relations, with an emphasis on the principal theoretical approaches and major problems and theories in the field. Students emerge from the course with an ability to situate theories and empirical claims in the broader historical, conceptual and empirical context of debates and literatures. This course explicitly prepares students for the IR field exam.

This seminar covers recent and classic empirical research on the relationship between 'the media' (broadly understood) and politics. Some of the canonical questions we explore include the power of media messages to persuade; the extent to which media outlets are ideologically slanted, and how to objectively evaluate claims of bias; how censorship and propaganda work; and the role of new information technologies and social media on societal pathologies such as mass polarization. This seminar focuses on relatively recent work that is quantitative in nature.

Central topics in security studies, including some combination of the following: causes and nature of interstate war, various forms of intrastate conflict, deterrence, alliance formation, military doctrine, civil-military relations, arms control, the role of intelligence in national security policy, and elite foreign policy decision making.

This class is a doctoral-level introduction to research design and statistical methods for empirical analysis in social science. The class introduces the chief goals of statistical analysis and the causal inference framework, focusing on the importance of specificity in estimands and the properties of statistical estimators, the potential outcomes framework, the definition of causal effects, the mechanics of randomized controlled trials, and prominent research designs for causal inference with observational data. The class has no mathematical prerequisites. Students will learn the statistical software R.

This is the second class of the quantitative methods field sequence in the PhD. in Politics; it is meant to be taken after POL 572. The class covers causal inference and program evaluation methods at a graduate level, as well as advanced topics in statistics such as nonparametric estimation and partial identification.

This course builds on POL 575, to further develop the analytical foundations for examining problems in collective choice. Topics include vote buying, multilateral bargaining, strategic information transmission, strategic voting with incomplete information, career concerns, and strategic experimentation. Readings combine textbooks and research literature.

This course is a research seminar in political economy of interest groups. Interest groups lie at the heart of politics and democratic process. Understanding why groups are organized and how they influence elections and various public policies is critical to our understanding of political representation. This course examines the ways that citizens, firms, institutions, various types of governments attempt to make their voices heard in the political process both in the United States and other countries.

The objective of this course is to understand the political theories at the core of the French Revolution - both the ideas that set it in motion, and the novel thinking about democracy, equality, liberty, and rights that emerged from it. To this end we read a diverse range of texts. We discuss: the theories that flourished in the decades before the revolution and that laid the foundations for it; texts from the major thinkers and actors of the revolutionary period; and responses to the Revolution from liberal and non-liberal thinkers in the nineteenth century. All texts are available in English translation.

Politics G3 students are required to enroll in POL 591. During the third semester, each Politics student writes a research paper (a 591) under the direction of a faculty member. The paper is due by the 31 of August for each rising G3 student, and will be graded in the fall semester of the student's third year.

This course will review and analyze the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to the present. It will emphasize Beijing's relations with the US as well as examine its dealings with the USSR, Asia and the developing world. It will explore the changes and continuities in the PRC's foreign policy during three periods; 1) the era of Mao Zedong's dominance, 2) the reform era begun under Deng Xiaoping and 3) the turn back toward authoritarianism since the advent of Xi Jinping.

Analyzes the historical construction of race as a concept in American society, how and why this concept was institutionalized publicly and privately in various arenas of U.S. public life at different historical junctures, and the progress that has been made in dismantling racialized institutions since the civil rights era.

This course provides students with an intensive overview of the rapidly evolving geopolitical, economic, and ideological rivalry between the world's two most powerful states: the United States and China. The course is intended both for masters students intending to pursue careers in the analysis, formulation, and execution of public policy, and for PhD candidates, many of whom are involved in research and teaching.

Analysis of political change and the operation of political institutions in the development process, with emphasis on the interaction of political and economic factors. Various definitions and theories of political development are examined and tested against different economic, ethnic, geographic, and social contexts.

The course investigates the interplay of politics and inequality, with a focus on class and race in the United States. The focus is on individuals' political views and behavior, with some attention to political institutions. We take up questions such as: does the political system equally represent the poor, middle class, and rich? Do Americans want government to ameliorate inequality? How do structural factors such as geography affect the politics of racial and ethnic inequality? Why are some people threatened by immigration while others embrace it?