Courses

Explores political institutions and processes in major regions of the world–Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Students are introduced to comparative methods of political analysis, and they develop conceptual and theoretical tools to analyze political issues like democratization, authoritarianism, revolution, ethnic conflict, and the political economy of development.

Students registering for introductory courses should register for the lecture only. Sections will be assigned during the first week of class. Introductory courses are also offered during summer session.

A survey of the development of Western political theory from Plato to the present. Readings from the works of the major theorists. An examination of the relevance of their ideas to contemporary politics.

Students registering for introductory courses should register for the lecture only. Sections will be assigned during the first week of class. Introductory courses are also offered during summer session.

For description, see SOC 2220

For description, see PHIL 2420

For description, see HIST 2331

For description, see HIST 2711

Analyzing a variety of movements from the late 19th century to the present, this course seeks answers to the following questions: What social and political conditions gave rise to these movements? What determined success or failure (and how should those terms be defined)? How do social movements affect political processes and institutions (and vise-versa)? What is their legacy in politics and in patterns of social interaction? The major movements analyzed are populism; progressivism; labor; socialism; women’s suffrage, the contemporary gender equality movement; protest movements of the 1930’s; civil rights; SDS and antiwar movements of the 60s; environmentalism; the 1980’s anti-nuclear (weapons) movement; gay rights; and the new religious right. Some theoretical works will be used, but most of our theoretical explorations will be inductively derived, from studies of actual movements and the difficulties they faced. (AM)

For description, see SOC 3070

For description, see STS 3911

A general-education course for students at the sophomore and higher levels. Law is presented not as a body of rules but as a set of techniques for resolving conflicts and dealing with social problems. The course analyzes the roles of courts, legislatures, and administrative agencies in the legal process, considering also constitutional limits on their power and practical limits on their effectiveness. Assigned readings consist of judicial and administrative decisions, social scientific articles, and commentaries on the legal process. (AM)

The role of Congress in the American political system. Topics to be discussed: the political setting within which Congress operates, the structure of Congress, the salient features of the legislative process, and recent congressional behavior in a number of policy areas.

This course will examine the nature of public opinion and analyze when and how it influences government. Specifically, the class will study various definitions of public opinion, theories of opinion formation and change, and how public opinion influences government policy. We will also analyze public attitudes toward specific issues, such as race and welfare, and we will discuss normative questions, such as the role opinion should play in American democracy.

Constitutional, legal, criminological, historical, policy, and political consequences of the gun issue in America. Historical and contemporary gun habits, the crime and self-defense debates, the role of the Second Amendment’s "right to bear arms," the gun culture, public attitudes, interest groups, federal gun laws, contemporary political controversies and the effectiveness of gun control measures.

For description, see HIST 3230

This course is designed as an introduction to political, economic, and social issues in 20th century Latin America. In the first section of the course the regions is analyzed through a political lens, focusing on issues including state formation, populism and corporatism, revolutions, the breakdown of democracy, military rule, and democratization. We then turn to issues under the heading of economic perspectives including dependency theory, import-substitution industrialization, the debt crisis, market reform, and the period of the post-Washington Consensus. The third section of the course presents a selection of the region’s central social issues including class structures, civil-military relations, church-state relations, social movements, and both internal and international migration. Throughout the semester, we will make reference to specific countries to illustrate each topic. (Note: Knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is not required.) CO

This course provides an introduction to contemporary Middle Eastern politics. The goal is to provide students with historical background and theoretical tools to answer the following core questions: (1) Why do authoritarian political systems persist in the Middle East more than they do elsewhere? (2) Why have Islamist groups become prominent opposition forces in and across some countries? (3) Why do some Middle Eastern countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared? (4) What accounts for the region’s current economic underdevelopment? (5) Would the adoption of Western-style political institutions improve governance and stability in the region? The course explicitly compares outcomes and explanations within the region, between the region and other world areas, and over time.

Despite recent bad feelings, the countries constituting the European Union (EU) still remain the most important partners for the U.S. in the world. And despite the rise of China and other Asian countries, the EU, together with the US, still calls the tune in the international economy. However, even citizens of the European Union generally know very little about how this complex structure works. This course explores the policies and policy-making of the European Union against the backdrop of the postwar history of European integration and the institutional framework of the EU. How did nation states with different cultures and no common language manage to combine their own particular interests with the general interest of an integrated union? Why does the EU work well in some areas, but fails to do so in others? We will furthermore consider the external dimension of the EU and explore current debates about the emerging European polity, in particular the European constitution. Throughout the course we will reflect on parallels with the American political system and on the state of current transatlantic relations. (CP/IR)

"Contemporary politics in Southeast Asia must be understood in light of colonialism, the nationalist movements that colonial rule in effect produced, and the geopolitics of the Cold War era. Colonial rule defined the territorial boundaries and institutions of the modern state, nationalism provided a new political discourse, and the Cold War influenced the nature of political authority and legitimacy in post-colonial states. This course will consider the importance of these and other themes in relation to processes of state building and democratization in comparative perspective, with special focus on Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, and the Philippines."

What is political authority and how is it constituted? How do we judge and act when torn by conflicting obligations? How do political actors in the present negotiate the legacies of past injustice (for example, slavery, colonialism, state violence)? To what extent does the past shape and determine our political present (our sense of self, our relations with others)? And where might we find the cultural resources for resistance and/or political transformation? These are some of the ethical and political questions we will pursue in this course through the study of prominent (and diverse) works of literature. The course will examine the important contributions of literature to the study of politics, and to the formation of a more thoughtful, critical citizenship. (PT)

› Download PDF

This course elaborates a critique of everyday life in writings of twentieth and 21st century continental authors such as Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord, among others. Topics to be considered include consumerism, neoliberalism, situationism as well as larger philosophical issues relating to time, space and technology.

The 20th and early 21st centuries have been profoundly affected by the development of extremely destructive, technology-based weapons, often (and sometimes wrongly) lumped together under the term “weapons of mass destruction.” This course will examine topics such as the physics, technology, ethics, and politics of nuclear weapons. In addition, the course will explore the nuclear arms race, efforts to restrain it via arms control, important concepts and strategies including nuclear deterrence, and recent and current issues associated with nuclear proliferation. Similarly, the technology, past and future potential uses, and prospects for preventing future use of biological, chemical, and radiological weapons will be covered. Finally, the delivery systems that enable the use of many of the above weapons will also be covered, ranging from the mass and fire bombings of World War II, to the massive missile arsenals of the Cold War, and to current issues such as the deployment and effectiveness of missile defenses.

This course serves as an introduction to the study of war, peace, and peacemaking. We will study different theories of peace and war from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The course will cover definitions of peace and war, causes of conflict, and modes of conflict prevention and resolution. The concepts will be applied to a range of historical and current conflicts. Students will prepare analyses of specific conflicts or instances of peacemaking for class presentation.

This course explores the sources of differences in foreign policy processes and outcomes across states. One school of thought holds that different domestic political institutions lead to differences in states’ foreign policies. Another argues that domestic and international norms and ideas are the crucial determinants of states’ international behavior. A third school of thought holds that states’ relative power and the constraints of anarchy are most important for understanding foreign policy. We will start by evaluating competing explanations for a number of general issues in foreign policy, including international war, humanitarian intervention, and foreign economic aid. We will then build on this general understanding with more specific inquiries into the foreign policies of individual states, including the U.S., China, Russia, and others. Students will be asked to think critically about the logic of competing arguments, as well as the strength of the evidence supporting different explanations for state behavior.

This course examines how gender identities are manipulated by masses and elites in a struggle to control agendas and resources. We will consider the following questions: How are issues such as fertility control, marriage rights, domestic violence, and regulation of sex work framed in a variety of national contexts? How do the similarities and differences in how we think about these issues shape patterns of political participation and representation? What do these patterns tell us about how hierarchies of power are (re)produced socially and institutionally? These questions are of pressing importance as we think about how to craft institutional contexts that provide citizens with the tools and incentives to shape democratic outcomes. We will use a policy analysis framework cross-nationally to talk about how a mix of social, historical and political factors condition what is politically possible for different interests in contemporary politics. (CO, AM)

Apply on-line during the pre-enrollment period. Once classes have started, use an add-drop slip; professor's signature is required.

Governments and their leaders can be pressed from above, from within, from below and from the side (transnationally) to promote human rights. How do these legal and ethical pressures work? What are their conceptual foundations? What are the structural relations and tensions among them? Our seminar will address these questions with a primary focus on the United States and the former Soviet Union (FSU), especially Russia. We will examine U.S. and FSU human rights policies and practices in relation to supra-national bodies and covenants (the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the Helsinki Accords); independent agencies within government (the U.S. Helsinki Commission, the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation); and local or transnational nongovernmental organizations (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Moscow Helsinki Group, the European Roma Rights Centre). Readings will include classic statements of human rights like the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Helsinki Final Act (1975), as well as court decisions and reports by human rights organizations.

Apply on-line during the pre-enrollment period. Once classes have started, use an add-drop slip; professor’s signature is required.

New digital media such as the Internet are shaping the structures and prime modes of organization in modern societies at all levels (individual, organizational, and societal). They are about to transform modern societies into network societies. Network societies are considered distinct from the mass societies of the past. Mass societies were shaped by groups, organizations and communities (‘masses’) organized in physical co-presence. Network Societies organize on the basis of decentralized forms of communication and new types of virtual spaces. This seminar explores the impact of these technological and socio-structural changes on democracy and the democratic process. It looks among others at recent developments in electronic voting, digitalized communication within political parties, social political networks, online-campaigns and digitalized constituency communication from a comparative perspective. The core question is whether these new modes of communication are about to transform liberal democracy as we know it today and how this transformation might exactly look like.

Apply on-line during the pre-enrollment period. Once classes have started, use an add-drop slip; professor’s signature is required.

Throughout the globe there are numerous individuals, groups and organizations using arts based processes to support peace-building efforts in severely conflicted societies. Arts processes such as theater, music and film, can be an especially effective means to bring together identity groups who are in conflict, by sharing common cultural experiences and engaging in cooperative creative projects. The power of various arts processes to impact individuals emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually via the creative process can help foster change within and between conflicted groups. However, the arts are not necessarily a magic panacea for addressing conflicts, it also vital to explore how they can legitimate cultures of violence in conflict regions. The course will cover a combination of theory and real-world cases, helping to contextualize many key concepts. In addition, students will receive practical exposure to several arts-based processes through exercises, guest-speakers and research projects. Through taking this course, students will develop an understanding of how professionals and organizations are incorporating innovative arts-based peace building processes in diverse settings that can help inform their future work.

Apply on-line during the pre-enrollment period. Once classes have started, use an add-drop slip; professor’s signature is required.

Latinos are a greater presence in American society and political life than ever before. Students in this course will explore themes such as immigration, political incorporation, inter-ethnic relations through both wide-ranging readings and the use of a unique dataset-- the 2006 Latino National Survey, a survey of 8,600 Latinos across 15 states, which includes questions ranging from crime and education to transnationalism and discrimination. Students will be expected to learn and use statistical software to conduct preliminary analyses of these data, and to use these data and other resources to explore original research projects. Prior coursework in American politics is recommended; no prior exposure to statistical software required.

This seminar analyzes some major changes in U.S. electoral and group politics in recent decades. Topics to be considered include: partisan realignment, the new conservatism, racial cleavages, "Identity politics," and democratic decline.

This seminar will explore China’s government and Party institutions in order to understand how environmental policy is made in the People’s Republic of China. The emphasis in this course is on Chinese governing institutions, not on the technical aspects of environmental policy. The format will be half informal lecture and half discussion.

Permission of the instructor required.

Limited to students who have completed GOVT 494, Honors Thesis Program.

This course will introduce students to some basic methods for conducting quantitative analyses in political science. After taking this course, students will be able to read and critique political science research that uses basic statistical analyses as well as be able to use basic statistical techniques, such as multiple regression analysis, in their own research. The course will begin with basic probability theory and proceed to statistical analysis of political data.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

A general survey of the literature and propositions of the international relations field. Criteria are developed for judging theoretical propositions and are applied to the major findings. Participants will be expected to do extensive reading in the literature as well as research.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

› Download PDF

The topic for the field seminar this year will be the Enlightenment. We will read and discuss the central texts of eighteenth century Enlightenment thought. (PT)

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

› Download PDF

Much of the literature that comprises the field of policy analysis is characterized by antipathy to politics: scholars attempt to excise political battles and concerns from their studies in order to advance a “rational” portrayal of how policies do or should function. Yet, public policies are, themselves, inherently political. They are defined through political processes, designed and implemented in the context of political institutions, and they in turn shape the character of politics and public life. This course entails the examination and evaluation of a variety of approaches to policy analysis, all of which are united by their inclination to take politics seriously. Readings have been included that comprise variations of rational choice, institutionalist, historical, behavioral, and interpretivist analyses. The first part of the course examines different models of the policy process that may inform policy analysis. The second part of the course investigates policymaking processes and institutions and examines stages of the policy process, including public mobilization, policy definition, agenda setting, policy design and implementation. Special attention is given to the American system, focusing on policymaking institutions, processes and outcomes in that context, but students who focus on other nations the or international system may also find the course useful. The course concludes with an examination of how policies, once created, may in turn restructure political processes and shape policies adopted subsequently.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

This seminar analyzes some major changes in U.S. electoral and group politics in recent decades. Topics to be considered include: partisan realignment, the new conservatism, racial cleavages, “Identity politics,” and democratic decline.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

This seminar explores some of the classic literature and contemporary comparative research on parties, party systems, and political representation. Readings will analyze party system dynamics in advanced industrial democracies as well as new democracies in post-communist and developing regions. They will draw from a range of theoretical perspectives, including the sociological, organizational, and rational choice institutionalist traditions. Topics to be covered include cleavage structures, organizational forms, party-society linkages, electoral strategies, clientelism, electoral volatility, and party system change. Assignments will include a research paper on a related topic.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

This seminar will explore China’s government and Party institutions in order to understand how environmental policy is made in the People’s Republic of China. The emphasis in this course is on Chinese governing institutions, not on the technical aspects of environmental policy. The format will be half informal lecture and half discussion.

Permission of the instructor required.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

A feminist lens of analysis disrupts traditional categories that frame the questions we ask with implications for the answers that we find and how we find them. A sample of readings across the disciplines will allow us to explore how feminist scholarship has led to the reframing of big questions while stretching the boundaries of traditional methodological frontiers. This course seeks to familiarize students with primarily qualitative methodological tools to be applied to individual research questions.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

This seminar compares non-democratic political systems in order to understand: how they come about, what sustains or undermines them, why some people resist them, how they fall, and what happens after. The course also examines if and how authoritarian regimes differ from one another and from democratic regimes in the conduct of their foreign policy. The course explicitly seeks to generalize about authoritarian regimes across time and place and will include cases from Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

This research seminar surveys the related fields of social movements and contentious politics. Using theories that derive from both the collective behavior and political process traditions of social movement research, the course seeks to broaden these into a general approach to contentious politics, applicable protest cycles, strike waves, nationalism, democratization and revolution. Students will write review essays or research papers.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

This course will survey the contribution of several strands of contemporary psychoanalysis to the study of ideology. After some preliminary texts from Freud and object-relations theorists (Winnicott, Melanie Klein, Bollas), we will examine several works of Lacan ("Kant with Sade" and Encore, among others) and their relation to fascist ideology, the problem of radical evil and to feminism/queer theory. Other works to be covered will include Althusser’s Writings on Pyschoanalysis, Derrida’s “Geopsychoanalysis and the Rest of the World” and Resistances. We conclude with the work of the Lubjlana school starting with Zizek’s Sublime Object of Ideology and continuing with Mladen Dolar (A Voice and Nothing More) and Alenka Zupancic.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

This seminar surveys contemporary research on politics and the global economy. We will examine political phenomena as both causes and outcomes, concentrating on substantive theoretical claims and strategies of causal inference. Topics will include trade, finance, production, migration, development, and welfare.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

Beginning from the provocative work of the late Charles Tilly on “Coercion, Capital and European States,” this course examines the relationships among state-building, war-making, and the expansion or suppression of rights. It asks: “Do states at war or planning war expand rights in order to gain revenue and popular support?” Or, conversely: “Do states attempting to control restive populations or repress dissent suppress rights”? It also asks whether some kinds of war (for example, bipolar territorial war) are more or less restrictive of rights than others -- for example, guerilla war, civil war, or international war)? And whether the substantial expansion of rights related to war in the past (for example, women suffrage, widows’ and soldiers’ pensions) are being reversed by a type of war -- like the so called "War on Terror" -- that does not demand substantial citizen mobilization. Finally, it asks whether internationalization has been expanded or reversed by the last decades’ shift from classical territorial warfare to guerilla war, civil war, and attempts to suppress international terrorism.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

The political, bureaucratic, economic, and technical environments of administration for agricultural and rural development; the various functions involved in administration (personnel managment, planning, budgeting, economic analysis, information systems); several major tasks (research, extension services, and infrastructure development); and specific problems of integrating activities, interfacing with rural populations, and utilizing external assistance. Intended primarily for persons who expect to have some future responsibilities in agricultural or rural development administration and Third World countries.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

Colloquium is the weekly seminar series hosted by the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA). It is also a required, one-credit course for al CIPA Fellows, and is graded S/U based on attendance. The colloquium series is a collaborative effort between the CIPA Colloquium Committee and the faculty and staff of CIPA. While each CIPA Fellow must exhibit competency in many different areas in order to graduate, it is impossible to gain full exposure to the variety of policy issues that students may be confronted with as a practicing policy professional. Thus, the weekly colloquium series is structured to provide students with an opportunity to augment their education in a breadth of policy areas. The administration and faculty of CIPA consider the CIPA Colloquium Series to be an essential aspect of professional development, and as such, attendance is expected of CIPA Fellows.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.

Game theory is a tool for studying strategic interaction. This course offers a critical introduction, with applications to comparative politics, American politics, and international relations. We will study the core concepts of game theory; how to formulate, solve, and empirically test games in ways that help advance research; and how to assess game-theoretic arguments in the political science literature. The course requires no prior training in game theory or formal methods.

Qualified undergraduates are encouraged to apply for seminars listed with 600 course numbers, but may only register with the permission of the instructor.