ClassInfo

While some countries have achieved unimaginable levels of wealth and well-being, many others continue to struggle with astonishingly high poverty rates and stagnant growth levels. In this course, we will explore these disparities, focusing on the political aspects of development. We will investigate the different "meanings" of development and grapple with the factors fostering (or hampering) development. We will engage with the theories about the relationship between development and colonialism, state power, geography, natural resources, international aid, and political regime types (democratic vs. authoritarian regimes). We will also focus on distributive politics and different responses to inequality and poverty. The course will provide empirical evidence from various world regions, with a particular emphasis on Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. By the end of the course, students will have a better understanding of the competing explanations for disparities of wealth between countries and possible solutions to global inequalities.

Why doesn't Congress seem to work? Why do Americans love democracy, but hate politics? Why are there only two political parties, and why do they seem to despise each other so much? This course will introduce students to politics in the United States, addressing these and many more questions about how the American political system really works. We will begin with the founding principles and historical development of the American system of government and then move on to examine the contemporary structure and function of American political institutions and the role that average citizens play in the political process. Students will exit the class with a better understanding of how the American political system succeeds or fails at living up to our ideals and what we can do about it.

Aristotle once called human beings "political animals,"meaning that, unlike gods or the other animals, we naturally create institutions to govern ourselves. What those institutions should look like, what values they should embody, and who should be in charge prove to be difficult questions that Aristotle leaves for us. Building on Aristotle's definition, this course offers an introduction to political theory, a sub-discipline of political science. By exploring some of the core issues and concepts of political theory, students will grapple with a number of "big questions" about politics in history and in the present: Why and how does politics matter in our everyday lives beyond the voting booth? On what basis is political authority seen as legitimate? How should we understand and embody political values like justice and equality in our own lives? What is the role of economics (capitalism, socialism, etc.) and economic inequality in the creation of political order? What should we think of the use of violence or non-violence in contemporary politics and protests? To explore these "big questions," we will relate historical readings to contemporary "hot-button" issues here in the Twin Cities, the US, and the globe.

POL 3085 teaches students how to study politics scientifically and introduces them to how to use quantitative analysis to answer political questions. The first part of the class covers how to formulate a theory (a possible answer to a question), specify testable hypotheses (what you would see if the theory is correct or incorrect), and set up a research design to test those hypotheses. In the second part of the class, we cover quantitative data analysis, beginning from preliminary statistical analysis to multivariate linear regression. There is no mathematical or statistical background required for this course and students are encouraged to pursue research projects of personal interest to them. By the end of the class, students should be able to ask and answer political questions using quantitative data and fluently evaluate statistical analyses of political phenomena in the media and many academic articles.

There are short assignments intended to be done within lab and mostly-weekly quizzes done outside of class. Quizzes are online and untimed.

POL 3085 teaches students how to study politics scientifically and introduces them to how to use quantitative analysis to answer political questions. The first part of the class covers how to formulate a theory (a possible answer to a question), specify testable hypotheses (what you would see if the theory is correct or incorrect), and set up a research design to test those hypotheses. In the second part of the class, we cover quantitative data analysis, beginning from preliminary statistical analysis to multivariate linear regression. There is no mathematical or statistical background required for this course and students are encouraged to pursue research projects of personal interest to them. By the end of the class, students should be able to ask and answer political questions using quantitative data and fluently evaluate statistical analyses of political phenomena in the media and many academic articles.

There are short assignments intended to be done within lab and mostly-weekly quizzes done outside of class. Quizzes are online and untimed.

POL 3085 teaches students how to study politics scientifically and introduces them to how to use quantitative analysis to answer political questions. The first part of the class covers how to formulate a theory (a possible answer to a question), specify testable hypotheses (what you would see if the theory is correct or incorrect), and set up a research design to test those hypotheses. In the second part of the class, we cover quantitative data analysis, beginning from preliminary statistical analysis to multivariate linear regression. There is no mathematical or statistical background required for this course and students are encouraged to pursue research projects of personal interest to them. By the end of the class, students should be able to ask and answer political questions using quantitative data and fluently evaluate statistical analyses of political phenomena in the media and many academic articles.

There are short assignments intended to be done within lab and mostly-weekly quizzes done outside of class. Quizzes are online and untimed.

Attendance: 10%

Paper 1: 35%

Paper 2: 35%

Final Presentation: 20%

This course considers approaches to the study of power, equity, and diversity (PED) in American higher education across the social sciences and humanities. It is the Core course of the PED concentration offered by the Department of Political Science.The PED concentration emerged as a counter-weight to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that divorced the pursuit of equity and diversity from critiques of power. On account of this separation, institutions of higher education could appear equitable and diverse without making meaningful changes to enduring hierarchies, the kind of changes required for actual equity and diversity. The PED concentration abandons aspirations for mere inclusion and instead takes recent interest in and support for DEI as an opportunity to advance scholarly agendas that center power. The concentration replaces efforts to superficially administer DEI with intellectual inquiry and cutting-edge research about PED. At root, this course asks, how are the social sciences and humanities disciplines constituted? Who gets to conduct research? What historical struggles have been waged to open these fields to marginalized groups? How has the opening changed the substance of research agendas? And finally, what role have the American social sciences and humanities played in the world at large?

To focus and enrich our investigation, the course pairs a wide-ranging inventory of interdisciplinary approaches to power, equity, and diversity (PED) with a critique of Political Science, the discipline nominally charged with the study of power in the American academy. In the United States, the field of Political Science most conventionally understands power as the capacity of the state or individuals to shift outcomes in their favor. How do other disciplines in this country and/or formations of the discipline in other locales approach the study of power? How must we reconceptualize power - its agents, dynamics, and effects - when we foreground questions of equity and diversity? How, if at all, does a PED framework challenge Political Science as a discipline, i.e., as a provincial formation in the service of empire? And how does it challenge received understandings of power beyond Political Science? What new modes of inquiry are compelled by a cross-disciplinary engagement and/or by an emphasis on equity and diversity? Any attempt to study the intersection of power, equity, and diversity worth its salt must also address questions about knowledge production in the study of politics. Here, again, American higher education reveals a peculiar arrangement. The study of politics nominally falls to the discipline of Political Science, the title of which designates expertise in the service of broader scientific knowledge. Political Science turns the noun "politics" into an adjective ("political") in order to describe a particular type of "science." Meanwhile, every other discipline in the social sciences and humanities features significant studies of politics conducted from their own respective methodological orientations - at times incorporating politics as a case study, at others pursuing approaches that Political Science renders silent. How did this arrangement come to be? What does it make possible and what does it foreclose?

This course provides an introduction to the study of international relations. We will cover several approaches to and issues in the field, including the causes of war and peace, nuclear proliferation, trade, finance, globalization, international law, the environment, and terrorism. We will discuss several cases, such as the 2003 Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis, throughout the semester. We will also discuss current events in international relations.

Course grades will be based on:

One ~1000 word paper analyzing an in-class exercise (10%)

Statecraft* quizzes and memos (10%)

One in-class mid-term examination (20%)

One ~1500 word policy paper based on critical analysis of course readings, lectures, and your own research (15%)

Final examination (35%)

Participation in Statecraft (10%)

*Statecraft is an online platform that implements a simulation of international politics. Statecraft memos should be at least 300 words and must be posted before each turn starts, beginning with Turn 1. These memos should detail challenges faced and strategies recommended for your country for each turn, and also should focus on your role within the simulation (e.g., the defense minister must include a defense budget for each turn). Each student must take both Statecraft quizzes and complete memos every other week, beginning with Week 1 or Week 2. In addition, students will be evaluated by both the T.A.'s and their peers regarding their participation in Statecraft. Students are responsible for turning memos in and taking quizzes on time. Statecraft will not accept late assignments, and you will lose credit for these assignments if they are submitted late.

The final examination will have an in-class component that will be administered on the last day of class and a take-home essay portion that will be distributed on following the final class session and due approximately five days later.

Corporations are perhaps the most powerful actors in the global political economy. They employ millions of people, produce a wide variety of goods, and have massive effects on the ecological and social environments in which they do business. Although considered to be "legal persons," corporations are not living beings with a conscience. Milton Friedman is famously known for his view that the only moral obligation of corporations is to maximize shareholder returns. Yet maximizing financial returns may result in behavior that negatively affects humanity, other living beings, and the planet. This potential conflict between profit and ethics is at the heart of this course.

We will think carefully about what it means for corporations to behave ethically. Doing so necessarily means that we will also think about our own values and the extent to which markets and politics should be employed to change corporate behavior. Are sweatshops immoral? Do corporations have ethical obligations to their employees and to the communities in which they do business? How do corporations exploit racial hierarchies and immigration status in their pursuit of profit? Should there be limits to what corporations can own or to the services that they supply? How do we balance costly labor and environmental regulations with our economic dependence on corporations? Does imposing our moral values on corporations risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

20% Class participation

40% 2 midterm exams (20% each)

15% 1 short paper (15%)