Consult department for detailed descriptions. More than one section may be given in a semester. Recent titles have included: Interpreting the Canon; State, Self, & Society; U.S. Policy in Europe; and Dissertation Writing.

Consult department for detailed descriptions. More than one section may be given in a semester. Recent titles have included: Interpreting the Canon; State, Self, & Society; U.S. Policy in Europe; and Dissertation Writing.

The dissertation prospectus is a requirement for successfully completing the Ph.D. in political science. The goal of this class is to help students write a draft of a dissertation prospectus. To that end, we will cover what the components of a successful dissertation prospectus are, how to identify interesting and feasible research questions, and how to develop workable theoretical and/or empirical strategies for answering those questions. The course will also cover other
professional development topics that will be important for conducting many students’
dissertation research, including providing constructive feedback, working with mentors, applying for external funding, and conducting research with human subjects.

This is a graduate level course on the political economy of immigration and forced displacement. The course covers some seminal work, but mostly cutting edge research on the political and economics aspects of the “movement of people” across borders. The course is split into two main sections:
The first section covers the political economy of migration in sending countries. Here we ask questions such as, why do people migrate? If migration is beneficial, why don’t more people do it? Who migrates? How do migrants choose a destination? What is the evidence of climate migration? And, what are the effects of migration on sending countries and communities?
The second section examines the political economy of migration in destination countries.
Here we will analyze potential pull factors (including asylum and refugee policies), survey theories of integration and assimilation, and more broadly, explore the determinants of public opinion with respect to migrants and refugees. We will also explore natives’ behavior toward migrants (including hate crime and hate speech), and whether voting is sensitive to ‘migrant exposure.’
While a political economy approach anchors the course theoretically, we will also touch upon human rights aspects of displacement, including the relationship between migration and conflict as well as human trafficking. Students will be exposed to a wide range of literature focused on both developed and developing countries.

This seminar is an introduction to principles of research design and to the collection and analysis of qualitative data in the social sciences. It is worth noting that many of the methods traditionally considered to be qualitative actually employ quantitative data, and vice versa; and that many of the principles underlying research design, case selection, and the process of data collection are common across empirically-oriented research methods, whether qualitative, quantitative, or formal. Hence, the course should be useful to students planning to utilize a variety of different kinds of research tools. Readings encompass theory, how-to, and examples drawn from political science and cognate social science disciplines. There are no prerequisites for the course, but some background in statistics and/or an idea of the substantive research questions you would like to pursue will be helpful.

The objective of this course is to provide Political Science Ph.D. students with statistical tools useful for making inferences about politics. We will cover fundamentals of probability theory, estimation, and hypothesis testing, emphasizing application to research questions in American Politics, positive Political Theory, Comparative Politics, and International Relations.

The objective of this course is to provide Political Science Ph.D. students with statistical tools useful for making inferences about politics. We will cover fundamentals of probability theory, estimation, and hypothesis testing, emphasizing application to research questions in American Politics, positive Political Theory, Comparative Politics, and International Relations.

International Relations Theory is designed to prepare doctoral students for the political science comprehensive exam in international relations. The course focuses on the foundational concepts and theories used in the analysis of international relations (including both international security and international political economy), starting from power, anarchy, and realism, and moving through institutionalism, social constructivism, and domestic political approaches. Additional weeks of the course cover the history of the international relations discipline, the logic of inquiry in the social sciences, and fundamental topics in international relations including the causes of war, international order, international diplomacy, and the significance of public opinion for foreign policy.

The main goal of this course is to familiarize students with experiments, quasi-experiments, survey experiments and field experiments as they are widely used in the social sciences. Some introductory level statistics background will be assumed, though this is a research design course, not a statistics course. By the end of the course, students will be expected to develop their own original experimental design that makes some original contribution to knowledge. Throughout the course of the semester, we will also consider how to deal with the issue of causality as it occurs in observational studies, and draw parallels to experimental research.

This course examines the debate in development studies arising from recognition that economic models, theories, methods, and strategies abstracted from the specific experience of western societies and cultures do not have general applicability. A broader social science approach is adopted, one which emphasizes the need to understand the social structures and cultures of the developing countries, the capabilities of weak versus strong states, and the links with the international system that influence transformative processes to which industrializing economies are subjected. The readings offer an overview of the most influential theories of development and underdevelopment that structured debate from the 1960's through the 1990's,and focus on the elements of these approaches that advance understanding of development and stagnation in several key countries, including Brazil, Mexico, India and selected countries in East and Southeast Asia.