Schedules

This course introduces the constitutional framework, political culture, branches of government, political behavior, and nongovernmental institutions (e.g. political parties, media, or interest groups) that dynamically shape American politics.  Approaches vary by instructor, potentially including some mix of simulations, class debates, offsite observations, and comparative and critical examinations, but share a common set of objectives: 1) cultivating a broad and conversational understanding of key ideas, issues, and problems particular to American politics through classic and contemporary readings; 2) stimulating further inquiry into how American politics works and why it matters and 3) developing students' own reasoning, critical thinking, writing, and public speaking skills. This course is principally designed for beginning political science majors and non-majors who have not taken an AP course in US Government and Politics.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course has three broad goals. The first is to develop the foundational knowledge and conceptual literacy necessary to engage with International Relations' multidimensional concerns. These include issues such as world order, power, hierarchy, political violence, international law, development, religion, human rights, gender, humanitarianism and international organizations (such as the United Nations). The second is to introduce students to the different perspectives or intellectual frameworks for making sense of international relations (also known as global or world politics), including realist, liberal, constructivist, historical materialist, postcolonial and feminist approaches. The third is to encourage students to reflect on some of the ethical issues inherent in both the study and practice of international politics. Emphasis will also be placed on developing a range of critical, analytical, research and writing skills required for the further study of international politics. The course is thus intended to prepare students for advanced work in the field, although it is also appropriate for those merely seeking to satisfy an interest in the study of global politics.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In Comparative Politics we use comparison to analyze political outcomes within and across countries, Why do Mexican presidents exercise strong centralized authority while Brazilian presidents must contend with powerful governors? Why do Muslims and Hindus fight in some Indian states but not in others? Why does Rwanda have such a high proportion of female legislators whereas the U.S. has such a low proportion? When confronted with large-scale protests in their cities, do state security forces in China, Russia, and the United States respond with similar methods or do they differ? Through comparative analysis, students will learn to describe diverse political institutions, to propose explanations for divergent outcomes, and to evaluate scholarly and popular arguments about politics.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An examination of civil liberties and rights in the U.S., focusing on the cases decided by the Supreme Court. Central topics include the First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, and religion; privacy and reproductive freedom; and the Fourteenth Amendment protection of equality as it affects discrimination, affirmative action, and voting rights.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is designed to encourage and facilitate students' direct involvement with politics, while reflecting and discussing what they learn with peers. Students in this course will partner with a local organization of their choice with help from the Internship Office and/or Civic Engagement Center (CEC) to determine the best fit among a wide range of social change, community organizing, political, legal, and direct service organizations. Through reflection and deep discussion, students will reflect individually and as a cohort, learning from each other as well as their organizational partners.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course is designed to encourage and facilitate students' direct involvement with politics, while reflecting and discussing what they learn with peers. Students in this course will partner with a local organization of their choice with help from the Internship Office and/or Civic Engagement Center (CEC) to determine the best fit among a wide range of social change, community organizing, political, legal, and direct service organizations. Through reflection and deep discussion, students will reflect individually and as a cohort, learning from each other as well as their organizational partners.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course explores legislative politics through a combination of academic theory and focused field experiences. Each student must simultaneously enroll in a credit-bearing internship at the Minnesota State Legislature. The class examines the basic structures, players and forces that shape legislative decision-making, the motivation or individual legislators, and their interactions with other political actors and institutions. Prerequisite(s): POLI 100 recommended.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is designed to introduce students to global governance. It begins with a discussion of the concept of global governance. It then turns to some of the central features of contemporary global governance, including the changing status of the state and of international/world organizations and the role of global civil society. The emphasis here is on how patterns of global governance have changed and are changing and on the implications of these changes for democracy, social justice, etc. The remainder of the course focuses on the areas of international peace and security, human rights and international humanitarian law, and economic governance. By addressing such topics as the International Criminal Court and the role of the IMF and the World Bank in economic development, these parts of the course highlight the contested nature of global governance in each of the three issue areas. Prerequisite(s): POLI 120 recommended.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Analysis of contemporary feminist theories regarding gender identity, biological and socio-cultural influences on subjectivity and knowledge, and relations between the personal and the political.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course will equip you with the skills and intuition to think about politics in a more critical and organized way.  You will practice the scientific method - identifying a problem worthy of study, developing testable hypotheses, designing a research strategy, gathering data, analyzing data, and interpreting your results - and contemplate the philosophical conundrums that underlie our efforts to describe, explain, and interpret complex phenomena. Empirical Methods: The department requires its majors to take one course in empirical research methodology before their senior year. In addition to this course, there are a number of other courses that fulfill this requirement, including: POLI 272, SOCI 269, SOCI 270, SOCI 275. In some cases, research methods courses taken in other social science disciplines may be used to fulfill this requirement following approval by the political science department chair.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course explores ethnic nationalism's causes and consequences in Eastern Europe. Drawing on several disciplines, we begin by examining the core concepts and theories in the contemporary study of nationalism. We then explore both the historical roots of Eastern European nationalisms, and their implications for democracy, minority inclusion, regional stability, and European integration.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In his 40-year career at Macalester, Professor Chuck Green functioned as a one-man `leadership academy,- inspiring and guiding students to make the transition from detached observers to engaged citizens. Through his teaching, mentoring, and example, Professor Green instilled in students a sense of confidence and optimism about their ability to engage proactively in the world. The Chuck Green Civic Engagement Fellowship honors this legacy. Students with sophomore or junior standing may apply for this seven-month fellowship that includes a spring seminar and a full-time, fully-funded summer field experience. Chuck Green Fellows will study democratic engagement in social and organizational change, identify a client organization working for the public good with whom the student can analyze and address a problem, and then work with that client on a mutually agreed-upon solution. The Fellowship culminates in the early fall with an event in which Fellows, faculty, and clients have an opportunity to reflect on the fellowship experience. The Fellowship counts as an intermediate course and fulfills the practicum requirement of the political science major. Contact the political science department for a full description and application. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Americans today live in a time of deep political polarization, intellectual isolation, and intense partisanship. We are defined in terms of our differences, and our disagreements often appear to be intractable. We rarely have genuine and open interactions with those with whom we disagree; when we do, we often do so on the assumption that they are not just wrong, but are irrational, immoral, and contemptible. This class aims to explore this phenomenon in its sociological, political, ethical, and intellectual dimensions. What are the causes and costs of our polarization? Is it possible to remedy our common ailments? Are we able to call upon “the better angels of our nature” and build and maintain civic and personal friendship across our differences and disagreements? We will explore these and many other questions together across the next semester. However, we will do so in an experimental fashion—testing many of these questions in the context of our seminar room as a microcosm. We will discuss controversial political topics, while building a community of trust, friendship, and rigor amid political and intellectual disagreement.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

According to Cedric Robinson, capitalism, from its advent, "pursued essentially racial directions." This insight led Robinson to a theory of “racial capitalism” that has been taken up by several scholars across disciplines. Through this course, we will attempt to answer the following questions: What is racial capitalism? How do we understand its key components (racism and capitalism) and how do they relate to one other? Is the question of the relationship between racism and capitalism a historical one or a purely theoretical one? How have these concepts influenced contemporary political struggles? What role do slavery, property relations, prisons, and the police play in the reproduction of racial capitalism?

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The world around us is defined by acute political insecurity and economic inequality. How did this reality come about and how can it be undone and remade? This course addresses these questions by examining the role of colonialism and anti-colonialism in the making of the modern world. In the first half of the course, we will examine issues such as racist policing, mass incarceration, organized abandonment, and environmental destruction. Through in-depth, theoretical analyses of a range of transnational cases (including the Twin Cities), we will consider how global insecurity and inequality are products of historical and ongoing colonialism. Despite the persistence of colonial violence across the world, the imperial project remains incomplete and thoroughly contested. In the second half of the course, we will explore how the colonial ordering of the world has been resisted and reconfigured by decolonial, Third World, and Indigenous social movements, thinkers, organizers, and revolutionaries. We will examine how decolonial thought and praxis can be and have been mobilized to create alternative sociopolitical arrangements. In particular, we will focus on radical alternatives that seek to achieve economic redistribution and communal ownership of resources, preserve safety through infrastructures of care and repair, and strive for collective liberation.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The transatlantic slave trade forcibly dispersed millions of Africans across the Americas, creating diverse Black communities whose experiences with state power and societal inclusion have varied widely. This course aims to understand these variations. Focusing on Latin America and the US, we will explore ongoing struggles for justice, identity, and belonging throughout the Americas to try to understand how blackness has become a politically salient category.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Criminal violence claims more lives globally than any other form of violence, yet much about its causes and effects remains unclear. Why do people participate in crime? How do criminal organizations shape the social, economic, and political landscapes of the areas where they operate? How do communities cope with or resist this violence? Does policing effectively prevent crime? We will aim to answer these questions by diving deep into Latin America’s struggle with organized crime, using the US as a supporting case for many of our discussions.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This advanced research seminar explores K-12 education politics and policy in the United States. We will consider institutions and structures, explore education policy issues and debates, survey and weigh competing theoretical ideas, and engage in discussions and activities designed to challenge our thinking and understanding of the educational landscape. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore-standing; previous coursework in American politics or public policy as well as research methods is recommended but not required. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore-standing; previous coursework in American politics or public policy as well as research methods is recommended.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is designed to introduce students to the study of international relations theory as an academic discipline. It is intended to prepare students for graduate work in the field, but should be appropriate for those merely seeking to satisfy an interest in international relations theory. The course is intended primarily for advanced political science majors and non-majors in cognate fields who have significant experience in the discipline. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore-standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Energy justice builds on the concepts of environmental and climate justice, with a focus on the visible and invisible infrastructures that produce, deliver, maintain and transform our economies and societies. Topics will include pipelines (Standing Rock), waste disposal (Yucca Mountain nuclear storage), and issues around the fracking (Bakken). The course will also focus on citizen science as a tool for revealing injustice and promoting justice, such as the work of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, a non-profit that develops open source, Do It Yourself tools for community based environmental analysis. Students will develop an independent major research project over the semester. This course can substitute for POLI 335. Prerequisite(s): POLI 215; sophomore standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course explores the rapidly evolving field of transitional justice, examining how and why regimes respond to wide-scale past human rights abuses. Drawing on examples worldwide, it asks why states choose particular strategies and examines a variety of goals (truth, justice, reconciliation, democracy-building), approaches (trials, truth commissions, file access, memorialization, reparation, rewriting histories), actors (state, civil society, religious institutions), experiences, results, and controversies. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

One facet of contemporary politics largely taken for granted is that states—as well as institutions such as Macalester and even student orgs—have written constitutions. This phenomenon has a history, however, and in recent years scholars have given higher priority to untangling its sources and consequences. This seminar will examine the origins and development of constitutionalism; the particular qualities of constitutional politics, such as institutional design and adaptation to social change; and related concepts such as the rule of law, corruption, and republicanism. After launching from American debates on originalism and the U.S. Supreme Court, the course will offer a broad tour that will include some theory (e.g., Aristotle and Machiavelli), early modern European history, and many modern cases from around the world. The primary student written work will be a research paper. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course explores the global politics of migration issues with particular attention to forced migration, refugee flows, and irregular migration. Our main focus will be on how and why states try to control their borders, and what the consequences of these control efforts have been. Sophomore status or permission of instructor required. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

A workshop for students pursing honors projects in the political science department. S/N grading.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In Comparative Politics we use comparison to analyze political outcomes within and across countries, Why do Mexican presidents exercise strong centralized authority while Brazilian presidents must contend with powerful governors? Why do Muslims and Hindus fight in some Indian states but not in others? Why does Rwanda have such a high proportion of female legislators whereas the U.S. has such a low proportion? When confronted with large-scale protests in their cities, do state security forces in China, Russia, and the United States respond with similar methods or do they differ? Through comparative analysis, students will learn to describe diverse political institutions, to propose explanations for divergent outcomes, and to evaluate scholarly and popular arguments about politics.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In Comparative Politics we use comparison to analyze political outcomes within and across countries, Why do Mexican presidents exercise strong centralized authority while Brazilian presidents must contend with powerful governors? Why do Muslims and Hindus fight in some Indian states but not in others? Why does Rwanda have such a high proportion of female legislators whereas the U.S. has such a low proportion? When confronted with large-scale protests in their cities, do state security forces in China, Russia, and the United States respond with similar methods or do they differ? Through comparative analysis, students will learn to describe diverse political institutions, to propose explanations for divergent outcomes, and to evaluate scholarly and popular arguments about politics.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Politics is a social science: It means trying to solve the problem of how to live with other people in a society. This course will take inspiration from some of the big puzzles about our struggle to live together. What are the advantages of thinking ideologically and thinking pragmatically? How do we build power to do good things but also control it? How should we be governed? How skeptical should we be of utopian thinking? Topics will include power and cooperation, democracy and its alternatives, different scales of government (from local to global), the construction of national identity, and constitutions and rights. Readings will range from theory, to history, to social science research; class periods will mix discussion, dialogue, and lecture. This course qualifies as a “Foundations” course, a required element in the Political Science major.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The readings and assignments in this course are designed to help students understand how social policies and programs contribute to Americans' lived experiences.  We will examine various theoretical justifications for the policies that constitute the American welfare state, then confront and dissect major strands of the American social safety net to better understand how political institutions and policy mechanisms contribute to both diversity and inequality in individuals' social, economic and political outcomes (based in race, class, gender, dis/ability, region, political jurisdiction, etc.).

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is designed to encourage and facilitate students' direct involvement with politics, while reflecting and discussing what they learn with peers. Students in this course will partner with a local organization of their choice with help from the Internship Office and/or Civic Engagement Center (CEC) to determine the best fit among a wide range of social change, community organizing, political, legal, and direct service organizations. Through reflection and deep discussion, students will reflect individually and as a cohort, learning from each other as well as their organizational partners.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course is designed to encourage and facilitate students' direct involvement with politics, while reflecting and discussing what they learn with peers. Students in this course will partner with a local organization of their choice with help from the Internship Office and/or Civic Engagement Center (CEC) to determine the best fit among a wide range of social change, community organizing, political, legal, and direct service organizations. Through reflection and deep discussion, students will reflect individually and as a cohort, learning from each other as well as their organizational partners.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the field of Environmental Politics and Policy. Using a comparative approach, the course engages the meaning and development of environmental governance. We will explore the tandem rise of the modern environmental movement and profound new environmental legislation in the U.S. and internationally. Topics investigated will include: deforestation, hazardous wastes, climate change, population growth, and loss of biodiversity.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is intended to introduce students to the military, political, economic, cultural and/or diplomatic dimensions of various regional conflicts or "security complexes." The specific region to be covered will vary from year to year, but it is expected that regions of pressing interest or greater significance to international peace and security will be covered most regularly. This course is designed for political science majors, but is also suitable for others who need to fulfill a distribution requirement in the social sciences or who simply want to satisfy an interest in a specific regional conflict or international politics/security more generally. Prerequisite(s): POLI 120 recommended.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Images of people affected by migration control are all around us today, bringing into sharp relief the vulnerability of the world’s migrants. We can probably all recall devastating images we have seen from the US-Mexico border or the Mediterranean Sea. But migration control has become pervasive across the globe, not limited to these two more familiar contexts. In this course, we will explore the global phenomenon of migration control. The first part of the course will look at migrants and migration, focusing on how we have come to distinguish between citizens and migrants, migrants and refugees, and the effects of these distinctions. The second part will examine how and why states regulate mobility, paying attention, among other things, to different types of migration controls (detention, deportation, maritime missions, and biometric border controls), the role of privatization in migration control, and the externalization of borders. The third part of the course will turn to what can and should be done to live with, resist and/or reform migration control.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course will equip you with the skills and intuition to think about politics in a more critical and organized way.  You will practice the scientific method - identifying a problem worthy of study, developing testable hypotheses, designing a research strategy, gathering data, analyzing data, and interpreting your results - and contemplate the philosophical conundrums that underlie our efforts to describe, explain, and interpret complex phenomena. Empirical Methods: The department requires its majors to take one course in empirical research methodology before their senior year. In addition to this course, there are a number of other courses that fulfill this requirement, including: POLI 272, SOCI 269, SOCI 270, SOCI 275. In some cases, research methods courses taken in other social science disciplines may be used to fulfill this requirement following approval by the political science department chair.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

All readings and class taught in English; no pre-knowledge required. Marx's contribution to the theorization of the function of the imaginary in both the constitution of subjectivity and the mechanisms of politics and economy-usually referred to as ideology-cannot be overestimated. The first part of this course traces Marx's gradual conceptualization of the imaginary throughout his work-as well as further Marxist theoreticians, such as Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, and Slavoj Žižek-while exploring how the imaginary enabled Marx's discovery of three further crucial concepts: structure, the unconscious, and the symptom, all of which are central in the analysis of culture and ideology. In the second part of the course, we shall focus on the logic and mechanisms of power in contemporary neoliberalism, including the claim that today Marx's theory is no longer relevant (readings will include Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Maurizio Lazzarato, McKenzie Wark).

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In two separate interviews in the 1970s, Michel Foucault claims he hides his citations of Karl Marx. These claims undermine the dominant scholarly narrative according to which Marx and Foucault offer contradictory frameworks of analysis. Through an exploration of key texts by these authors, this class will explore the possibility of reading Marx and Foucault as theoretical allies rather than enemies. In particular, we will focus on the possibility of reading Marx’s critique of political economy and Foucault’s genealogical analysis of power and subjectivity together. We will compare the methods of the authors, consider their approaches to the study of history, and ask what it means to take up their theoretical work politically.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Arguments in law possess a specialized format, both orally and written. Even as the stability of constitutional understandings have been undermined, advocacy in this genre remains vital for persuading courts. This course will provide a space for developing argumentative skills in appellate advocacy. The course will include some empirical study of court and judges. Students in the course will prepare moot court arguments and participate in scrimmages, and the final paper will be a written brief submitted to a national competition. This course stands independent of the college’s Moot Court oral advocacy team: Some students in the course will compete, but it is not required; nor is enrollment in this course required in order to audition for the team.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course introduces students to interpretation as a method of social and political analysis. The course will explore the intellectual, practical, and political dimensions of interpretive research. Students will examine a range of methods including, but not limited to, historical/archival research, textual interpretation, oral history, and ethnography, and explore how these methods can be deployed to design and conduct qualitative research projects structured around normative political questions. We will delve into the historical and philosophical origins of these methods, engage with scholarly works that have deployed them, and attempt to apply select methods to our own unique research questions. Throughout the course, we will explore the ethics and politics of using particular methods of data collection and analysis. This course fulfills the methods requirement in Political Science.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

According to Cedric Robinson, capitalism, from its advent, "pursued essentially racial directions." This insight led Robinson to a theory of “racial capitalism” that has been taken up by several scholars across disciplines. Through this course, we will attempt to answer the following questions: What is racial capitalism? How do we understand its key components (racism and capitalism) and how do they relate to one other? Is the question of the relationship between racism and capitalism a historical one or a purely theoretical one? How have these concepts influenced contemporary political struggles? What role do slavery, property relations, prisons, and the police play in the reproduction of racial capitalism?

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course offers an intersectional analysis of LGBTQ+ policy in the United States. We will explore key achievements such as federal marriage equality, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and expanded anti-discrimination protections, while critically examining their impacts on historically marginalized groups—including queer people of color, transgender, gender nonconforming, disabled, and low-income individuals. Additionally, the course acknowledges the recent major setbacks in LGBTQ+ rights policy, drawing on readings from queer liberation scholars and political scientists to evaluate current gains and challenges, and to envision what full equality might look like for LGBTQ+ people.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Traces the evolution of (global) political economy as a peculiarly modern way of understanding and organizing (global) social life. Particular attention will be paid to how the distinction between the political and the economic is drawn and implemented in interconnected ways within nation-states and in international society. Course includes a detailed study of one of the key components of the international political economy: international trade, international finance, technological processes, etc. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore-standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In 2000, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). This resolution acknowledged the inordinate impact of armed conflict on women and girls, as well as the crucial role that women can and do already play in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts. It urged states and other actors to increase the participation of women - and to incorporate gender perspectives - in all peace and security efforts. Since 2000, there have been nine additional resolutions that together have created the Women, Peace and Security agenda, a global framework for advancing gender equity in all areas of international peace and security. This course will explore feminist scholarship on armed conflict, peace and security leading up to the adoption of UNSCR 1325, as well as the 20 years of research, policy and practice on Women, Peace and Security. We will focus on the contributions and limitations of the WPS agenda as well as on new themes and issues that have emerged over time. This fall, which marks the 25th anniversary of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, students in the course will have the opportunity to travel to New York City for three days of meetings at the United Nations focused on the development and implementation of the WPS agenda. Travel details, including cost, are currently being worked out but will be available to students before the start of the course.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

How did the Arab Spring and Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement deploy a similar tactical repertoire, yet provoke different outcomes? Comparing movements for Black lives in Colombia and South Africa, does participant diversity boost or undercut mobilization? And does mobilization of identity explain how indigenous Bolivians ejected U.S. corporations and scored lasting victories against the white power structure? This advanced research seminar engages theories that seek to explain the origins and development of movements, including LGBTQ+ movements struggling to avoid deradicalization in Germany, feminist organizations in Nicaragua navigating tensions between autonomy and agenda-setting, mobilization of Brazilian prisoners resisting pandemic lockdowns within lockdowns, and artists making visible the erased contributions of Kenyan women to the global climate justice movement. Students planning to conduct social movements research while studying away may write a research prospectus to launch that field research project. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

What is a revolution, and what makes one succeed or fail? In this advanced seminar, students will explore revolutionary movements across history and regions, analyzing why they emerge—or don’t—and whether they achieve their goals. Through readings, simulations, essays, and quizzes, students will critically engage with theories and real-world cases of revolutionary change. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The goal of the Senior Research Seminar (Capstone) is to launch students on a culminating academic experience organized around the supervised independent study of a political science topic of particular interest and relevance. The Seminar is premised on the assumption that students will have a working familiarity with the foundational knowledge in the sub-field(s) relevant to their reserach project, a mastery of the practical skills introduced in foundation courses and further developed in intermediate courses, and a willingness to engage actively in a rigorous, sustained inquiry into an important topic. In each section of the seminar, a faculty member will coach students through the process of defining a significant and important political science research question, developing a thesis, designing an appropriate research program and writing a 25-35 page original capstone.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The goal of the Senior Research Seminar (Capstone) is to launch students on a culminating academic experience organized around the supervised independent study of a political science topic of particular interest and relevance. The Seminar is premised on the assumption that students will have a working familiarity with the foundational knowledge in the sub-field(s) relevant to their reserach project, a mastery of the practical skills introduced in foundation courses and further developed in intermediate courses, and a willingness to engage actively in a rigorous, sustained inquiry into an important topic. In each section of the seminar, a faculty member will coach students through the process of defining a significant and important political science research question, developing a thesis, designing an appropriate research program and writing a 25-35 page original capstone.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The goal of the Senior Research Seminar (Capstone) is to launch students on a culminating academic experience organized around the supervised independent study of a political science topic of particular interest and relevance. The Seminar is premised on the assumption that students will have a working familiarity with the foundational knowledge in the sub-field(s) relevant to their reserach project, a mastery of the practical skills introduced in foundation courses and further developed in intermediate courses, and a willingness to engage actively in a rigorous, sustained inquiry into an important topic. In each section of the seminar, a faculty member will coach students through the process of defining a significant and important political science research question, developing a thesis, designing an appropriate research program and writing a 25-35 page original capstone.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The goal of the Senior Research Seminar (Capstone) is to launch students on a culminating academic experience organized around the supervised independent study of a political science topic of particular interest and relevance. The Seminar is premised on the assumption that students will have a working familiarity with the foundational knowledge in the sub-field(s) relevant to their reserach project, a mastery of the practical skills introduced in foundation courses and further developed in intermediate courses, and a willingness to engage actively in a rigorous, sustained inquiry into an important topic. In each section of the seminar, a faculty member will coach students through the process of defining a significant and important political science research question, developing a thesis, designing an appropriate research program and writing a 25-35 page original capstone.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials