American Politics

American Political Development (Spring 2020, Spring 2023)

Course description: This upper-level elective is organized around a central question: what makes the United States institutionally unique? The course begins with a brief survey of different theoretical perspectives on American political development, including those that emphasize the roles of race, culture, religion, and economics on state development. The majority of the course is spent proceeding chronologically through critical periods in U.S history--the Founding, the Early Republic, the Jeffersonian/Jacksonian eras, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Reform Era, the New Deal, and the cultural and political realignments of the 1960s and 1970s. The course ends with a series of thematic seminars on critical topics in APD, including the relative weakness of American labor; the success and failure of modern social movements; and the neglected role of gender analysis in state development. By the end of the course, students gained an understanding of the main eras in American politics, and will have wrestled with the question of just how and in what ways American politics is truly “exceptional.”

Intro to American Federal Government (Summer 2022, Spring 2023)

Course description: This is an introductory course designed to familiarize students with the basic institutions and core concepts of American politics, as well as examine some of the consequences for our daily lives. Our basic guiding question is who governs, and how? Some of the topics we cover will be the fundamentals of democratic governance; the Constitutional debate and its ramifications; federalism; civil rights and liberties; elections and public opinion. Throughout the course, we will examine how linkage institutions (such as the media and interest groups) and electoral pressures create incentive structures which influence the behavior of politicians and individuals. Throughout, this course will take special care to examine the fundamental tension between the traditions of liberalism and racism/white supremacy, and what the consequences are for our politics.

Methods Courses

Conduct of Inquiry (Fall 2022)

Course description: How do we know that our understandings of the world are true? What makes something true in the first place? How do we know if a policy made a process more democratic? More to the point, what is democracy anyway, and can we measure it?

 To quote Laswell (1936), the study of politics is the study of “who gets what, when, and how.” Political science represents our attempt to systematically study and document that phenomena. As such, this course is designed as an introduction to positivist political science research. In brief, this course will engage with three main questions: 1) how does one develop interesting and important research questions; 2) how do we design and implement research to answer these questions; and 3) how do we know that the answers we arrive at are true? We will approach these questions from both a theoretical and practical point of view. Students will learn how to conduct original research, present this research to their colleagues, and begin to analyze the data necessary to answer their questions. Throughout the course, students will critically reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of various designs. The course is centered around the development of an original research project design, which will be presented in the final weeks of class.

Research Methods (Fall 2022, Spring 2023)

Course description: This course is designed as an introduction to positivist political science research. In brief, this course will engage with three main questions: 1) how does one develop interesting and important research questions; 2) how do we design and implement research to answer these questions; and 3) how do we know that the answers we arrive at are true? We will approach these questions from both a theoretical and practical point of view. Students will learn how to conduct original research, present this research to their colleagues, and begin to analyze the data necessary to answer their questions. Throughout the course, students will critically reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of various designs. The culmination of this course is a group project where students will collaboratively design and present a research proposal.