Independent study, under faculty supervision, for intensive research on a specific topic. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

Independent study under faculty supervision, for students who are preparing for intensive research on a specific topic. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

This class surveys interpretative approaches used to study the objects that comprise political theory's purview: treatises, historical events, cultural practices, and archival materials. Students will read canonical methodological statements, like those of contextualism and ethnographic thick description. They will also survey major figures of political thought, the better to train students to use these methods in their teaching.

This seminar will critically examine both classic and current scholarship in American Political Development (APD) -- a sub-field of American Politics that explores the historical roots of politics and government in the United States. 

Provides an in-depth survey of International Relations Theory from the point of view of security studies.  Focuses on the primary problem of cooperation between great powers; the causes of conflict and war; the role of psychology and domestic politics in conflicts; the role of institutions and trade in creating "zones of peace"; and the importance of signaling and diplomacy within environments of profound uncertainty.

This course begins with the relationship of political science to identity politics. Next, we study the shift in treating identity as a given to a process and consider four approaches to identity formation. We then turn to two pressing challenges: how to study identity and the interactions of identity groups with one another. The final section of the course addresses the consequences of identity politics, such a mobilization and voting.

Special Topics in International Relations

Supervised Research I

Examines qualitative methods in political science, including ethnography, interviewing, focus groups, process tracing, and archival research, while exploring their integration with large-n methodologies such as field and natural experiments and survey research. Explores theoretical, empirical, and epistemological issues in qualitative and multi-method research, with attention to concept definition and measurement.

Studies the legislative process in the U.S. Congress, US state legislatures, and some examination of comparative legislatures. Topics include the internal distribution of power, influences on legislative behavior, institutional changes in legislatures and their effects, relationships with other political institutions, the place of legislatures in the American polity, and the problems associated with it.