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

This graduate core seminar is an introduction to the main topics in the study of American politics, including behavior, institutions, and American political development

Comparative Politics Core Seminar

PhD-level course on theories and evidence in International Political Economy. Topics include international trade, foreign direct investment, global financial markets, international monetary policy, and international migration.

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.

Game theory is the analytic study of strategic interactions among individuals, firms, governments, or other groups of people. This course demonstrates the usefulness of this powerful analytic approach, through numerous real-world and scholarly applications and through an examination of lab experiments built upon game theoretic modeling techniques. Cross-listed with PPOL 7045.

Studies the theoretical formulation of questions for political science research and examination of the design and execution of empirical research. Includes consideration of developing hypotheses for research, strategies for data collection (survey research, observational methods, content analysis), managing research projects, and ethical considerations related to the conduct of research.

Introduces probability and statistics as tools for quantitative political science analysis. Covers basic probability theory, descriptive statistics, and statistical inference with focus on the specification and interpretation of the regression model. Weekly homework assignments allow students to practice applying the concepts and methods from class. The course requires no prior experience with statistics.