This course is an introduction to the field of political communication and conceptual approaches to analyzing communication in various forms, including advertising, speech making, campaign debates, and candidates' and office-holders' uses of social media and efforts to frame news. The focus of this course is on the interplay in the U.S. between media and politics. The course includes a history of campaign practices from the 1952 presidential contest through the election of 2020.

This course examines the ways in which the processes of the extraction, refining, sale and use of natural resources – including oil and diamond – in Africa produce complex regional and global dynamics. We explore how values are placed on resources, how such values, the regimes of valuation, commodification and the social formations that are (re)produced by these regimes lead to cooperation and conflict in the contemporary African state, including in the relationships of resource-rich African countries with global powers. Specific cases will be examined against the backdrop of theoretical insights to encourage comparative analyses beyond Africa. Some audio-visual materials will be used to enhance the understanding of the political economy and sociality of natural resources.

Political polls are a central feature of elections and are ubiquitously employed to understand and explain voter intentions and public opinion. This course will examine political polling by focusing on four main areas of consideration. First, what is the role of political polls in a functioning democracy? This area will explore the theoretical justifications for polling as a representation of public opinion. Second, the course will explore the business and use of political polling, including media coverage of polls, use by politicians for political strategy and messaging, and the impact polls have on elections specifically and politics more broadly. The third area will focus on the nuts and bolts of election and political polls, specifically with regard to exploring traditional questions and scales used for political measurement; the construction and considerations of likely voter models; measurement of the horserace; and samples and modes used for election polls. The course will additionally cover a fourth area of special topics, which will include exit polling, prediction markets, polling aggregation, and other topics. It is not necessary for students to have any specialized mathematical or statistical background for this course.

"Diplomacy in the Americas" an academically based community service course in which students work with Philadelphia and Norristown public school students to explore solutions to critical problems facing the Americas. Entrenched political, economic, and social inequality, combined with environmental degradation, weak institutions, pervasive health epidemics, weapon proliferation, and other issues pose formidable hurdles for strengthening democratic ideals and institutions. The Organization of the American States (OAS), the world's oldest regional organization, is uniquely poised to confront these challenges. "Diplomacy in the Americas" guides students through the process of writing policy resolutions as though the students were Organization of the American States (OAS) diplomats, basing their research and proposals on democracy, development, security, and human rights - the four pillars of the OAS. Students will also read literature about what it means to educate for a democracy and global citizenry, and they will have the opportunity to turn theory into practice by creating and executing curriculum to teach and mentor the high school students through interactive and experiential pedagogies.

This course is an introduction to the major theories and issues in international politics. The goals of the course are to give students a broad familiarity with the field of international relations, and to help them develop the analytical skills necessary to think critically about international politics. The course is divided into four parts: 1) Concepts and Theories of International Relations; 2) War and Security; 3) The Global Economy; and 4) Emerging Issues in International Relations.

Understanding and interpreting large, quantitative data sets is increasingly central in political and social science. Whether one seeks to understand political communication, international trade, inter-group conflict, or other issues, the availability of large quantities of digital data has revolutionized the study of politics. Nonetheless, most data-related courses focus on statistical estimation, rather than on the related but distinctive problems of data acquisition, management and visualization--in a term, data science. This course addresses that imbalance by focusing squarely on data science. Leaving this course, students will be able to acquire, format, analyze, and visualize various types of political data using the statistical programming language R. This course is not a statistics class, but it will increase the capacity of students to thrive in future statistics classes. While no background in statistics or political science is required, students are expected to be generally familiar with contemporary computing environments (e.g. know how to use a computer) and have a willingness to learn a variety of data science tools. You are encouraged (but certainly not required) to register for both this course and PSCI 338 at the same time, as the courses cover distinct, but complimentary material.

How is education a form of political action? In this course we look at the governance of schools, the trust in them and their relations to socio-economic conditions in society, among other topics, using research in education, political science, and political theory.

Supervised readings and research in various areas of Political Science, available only to political science doctoral students preparing for the dissertation phase. Section numbers must be obtained from the Political Science office.

This course is intended as a general introduction to political theory since 1900. The theme for the Spring 2023 will be: Power and Politics, and the theorists examined will include Hannah Arendt, bell hooks, Michel Foucault, Bertrand de Jouvenel, and James C. Scott. Questions include: What is political power? How has it been exercised and by whom? Who should have power? Are power and violence inescapably intertwined? Do those without conventional political power understand and exercise power differently from those who traditionally wield it? How have technologies of surveillance and control by medical, psychiatric, computer and security experts altered where power is and how it operates?

This is an advanced course on the main issues of contemporary China's political economy. There is a strong focus on the reform period (post 1978). We will spend considerable time and energy on understanding the major themes and challenges of China's reforms, including the political system, the legal system, the inequality, foreign direct investment, village elections, lawmaking, environmental degradation, social opposition, corruption, and religion. We also investigate the many political and social consequences of reform and changing landscape of Chinese politics. A prior course on Chinese politics (for example, PSCI219) is highly recommended.