Undergraduate Seminars
Students majoring in political science must take two 4-point 3000-level seminars. At least one of the seminars taken must be in the student’s primary subfield.
Registration
Students may not pre-register for political science seminars. To register, students must join the seminar's wait list in SSOL. Students on the wait list will receive further instructions from the instructor or the department.
Instructors' preferred methods for admitting students to seminars vary. Some will correspond with students via the wait list function in SSOL. Some will give instructions in the course notes section of the Directory of Classes. Others may communicate with students individually. Still others may ask all interested students to come to the first class meeting for instructions.
The Academic Affairs Coordinator can answer questions about seminar registration.
Seminars must be taken for a letter grade.
Fulfilling the seminar requirement
The following courses fulfill the seminar requirement. All seminars are offered for 4 points of credit.
- POLS UN3911x and UN3912y — Seminar in Political Theory
- POLS UN3921x and UN3922y — Seminar in American Politics
- POLS UN3951x and UN3952y — Seminar in Comparative Politics
- POLS UN3961x and UN3962y — Seminar in International Relations
Other seminars, including Barnard colloquia, may count for seminar credit only with the written permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies or the Undergraduate Advisers.
Spring 2020 Seminars
- Section
Section 001
Nonviolence
This seminar examines the theoretical origins and implications of nonviolent politics. From Gandhi’s experiments in mass satyagraha over a century ago, the nonviolent direct action of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, to the anti-authoritarian struggles of the 1980s and 1990s, and more recently in the Occupy movements and the Arab Spring, nonviolent politics have become a staple of protest politics across the globe. We will reflect on this phenomenon from a philosophical angle. First, we explore the origins of ideas of civil disobedience, non-resistance, and non-cooperation in the writings of Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Gandhi. Second, we examine how Gandhi and King developed and deepened these ideas as they put them into practice on a mass scale. Finally, we will review a range of more recent writing which reflect on the theoretical significance of the successes and global spread of nonviolent politics. Some topics we will explore include: the analysis and critique of violence; pacifism and war-resistance; what makes nonviolent movements politically effective; what nonviolence reveals about the nature of political power, consent and dissent, and democracy.- Instructor
- Mantena
- Section
Section 002
Power, Rights and Social Change: Achieving Justice
This seminar course will introduce students to the field of justice. It will combine an intellectual history of conceptions of justice and modes of political change with an exploration of the main areas of public interest and advocacy. The course is intended to serve as a bridge from the Columbia Core to present issues of social justice. Throughout, the discussion will center on how we—contemporary public citizens—can improve our social and political condition and achieve justice. The course will explore what it means to pursue the public interest and to become a public citizen today, informed by the long tradition of writings on justice and social change. We will analyze social justice issues through theory, history, judicial decisions, law, and facts about our current conjuncture. How do we pursue justice in these troubled times? How can history and social theory inform our current political practices? In sum, what is to be done in the face of political oppression or injustice? How do we build more just societies?- Instructor
- Vergara
- Section
Section 001
Contemporary U.S. Politics
This seminar looks both backward and forward in terms of US electoral politics. How was Donald Trump able to upset conventional wisdom at every juncture and actually win the presidency? What is behind the Democrats’ strong showing in the 2018 midterm election, and what are the implications for the future? What can we say at this stage about US elections in 2020 and beyond? For answers, students will examine relevant literature from Political Science on US electoral politics. Students will also write individual research papers to answer relevant questions about contemporary US electoral politics.- Instructor
- Erikson
- Section
Section 002
Executive Leadership in the United States: Public, Private, Non-profit, Zebrowski
This seminar is an examination of the nature and practice of executive leadership in public, private (i.e., for profit, business), and non-profit institutions in the United States. The course does not begin with a theory of executive leadership. Rather, the goal of the course is to develop such a theory, a theory that takes into account the similarities and differences among the very different institutional sectors in American life, and a theory that distinguishes authentic leadership from four related matters, the effective exercise of power, effective management, having a “top job,” and celebrity. The first part of the seminar is devoted to: a) discussion of common, required readings, including case studies, that consider the nature and practice of executive leadership, and b) discussion of students’ research interests and strategies for gathering, organizing, and analyzing data for their own seminar papers. The second part of the course is devoted to students’ presentations, in class, of their own research on particular public, private, and non-profit executive leaders or problems in executive leadership, and to class discussion of their research.- Instructor
- Zebrowski
- Section
Section 003
Terrorism and Counterterrorism
The seminar is designed to illuminate students’ understanding of the most important aspects of domestic and transnational terrorism and counterterrorism today and in the past through assigned readings, class discussions, and research for a required term paper. While the major focus is on the United States as target of and responder to this sort of political violence, we will also touch upon terrorist threats/attacks and countermeasures around the globe that do not involve the U.S.- Instructor
- Nacos
- Section
Section 004
The First Amendment
The First Amendment has probably generated a larger scholarly literature, a larger popular literature, and more discussion at all levels of society than any other part of the Constitution. In this seminar, we will examine the philosophy underlying the First Amendment, along with selected Supreme Court decisions cases involving the speech and religion clauses. We will ask how the Court has balanced (and how it should balance) the rights protected by the First Amendment against values such as public safety, national security, dignity, and equality.- Instructor
- Amdur
- Section
Section 005
Policymaking
This seminar directs readings and research on public policymaking in the American federal government. It is designed to help students think analytically about the ways in which the politics, structures, processes, and actors at the heart of public policymaking interact. It examines how political institutions--the executive and legislative branches--are organized and motivated to produce policy, the politics of government organization, bureaucratic operation and survival, how the budget process drives policymaking processes, policy structures and relationships that have emerged out of custom and practice, theories and models of decision-making, concepts of rationality and choice, agenda-setting, political innovation, and judicial and interest group roles in policy formation. Specific policy areas we will engage as case studies are: the economy and employment, trade, financial reform, campaign finance reform, and policy responses to terrorism, war, and disaster.- Instructor
- Russell
- Section
Section 006
Politics and Policy: States, Local Governments, and Finance
State and local governments across the U.S. intersect with markets in a myriad of ways. The power to govern is the ability to mobilize resources and organize public and private interests in local governing arrangements. State and city governments are both borrowers and investors promoting fiscal, human capital, and economic development policies. The municipal debt market is over $4 trillion in bonds outstanding. The scale of this market is supported through an assemblage of intergovernmental actors, private interests, issuers, and investors operating at both a local and global scale. This course examines the role of state and local governments, and the ways they access capital markets to promote a range of policy objectives. Considerable attention is given to fiscal crisis and intervention strategies state policy-makers impose on cities as well as the turnaround strategies executed by decision-makers in cities.- Instructor
- Bushell
- Section
Section 007
Political Parties, Voting and Campaigns in American Politics
This course will examine topics around the evolution and development of political parties and electoral systems, the purpose and causes of voting and vote choice as well as the impact and strategies behind political campaigns in the US. The course will seek to look at these topics, which seem to dominate political news, in an academic context so that students can understand these political phenomenon in a more thoughtful and scholarly way. Questions such as why the US has a two party system, how our political debate and parties are influenced by our electoral system and constitution, how changing media over the last sixty years has influenced campaigns and political communication and how vote choice is determined will be addressed throughout the course.- Instructor
- Mitchell
- Section
Section 008
Sexuality and Citizenship in American Politics
For much of the 20th century, the American political system excluded lesbians and gay men from full citizenship. This course seeks to understand the political and social forces shaping the transformation of these sex nonconformists from a pariah group into a viable social movement and eventually into a powerful constituency within the Democratic Party. Special emphasis will be placed on the state’s role in defining lesbian and gay identities, the ways in which gender and racial diversity have shaped the LGB movement, and the role that partisan electoral strategies played in ushering sexuality to the center of American political conflict.- Instructor
- Phillips
- Section
Section 001
State-making in South Asia
This seminar is an advanced introduction to the politics of contemporary South Asia, one of the world's most diverse and fascinating regions. In this course we will look at some aspects of interaction of the state, society and market in South Asia with an aim to evaluate (a) how comparative social science illuminates South Asia and (6) how analysis of specific cases in South Asia contributes to general theorizing about politics. We will use the South Asian experience to address some of the central questions in contemporary political science. While the focus of this course is contemporary, we will devote considerable time to examine how colonial experiences shape the politics that we see today. Although readings will cover the entire region, we will devote most of our attention to India.- Instructor
- Sen
- Section
Section 002
Democratization
This course will examine the nature and the determinants of democratization processes around the world. Students are expected to become familiar with not only the cutting edge theoretical discussions on democracy and democratization, but also their real world implications. The purpose of this course is responding to the following two questions. Why some countries prefer and successfully transform into democracy, while others not? How do countries consolidate their democracy? The course will start with introducing the different definitions of democracy and the types of governance, as well as discussing the problem of democratic legitimacy. In the following weeks, our attention will be on the impact of cultural and socio-economic factors on democratization. These factors include political culture, civil society, structure of social classes, and economic development. Next, we will discuss the relationship between the constitutional designs and democracy. Final weeks are devoted to the topics on the durability of undemocratic or semi-democratic institutions and the role of civil military relations on democracy.- Instructor
- Aydogan
- Section
Section 001
International Security
Contemporary developments in international politics are giving rise to many new challenges to international security. Understanding some of these may require revisiting and renewing some standard theories that have a long track record in literature on international relations: deterrence and bargaining theories, the balance of power, power transitions, and the effect of economic interdependence on war and peace. Other challenges—rising populism and nativism—may require borrowing insights from other fields or rummaging in the attic of semi-forgotten social theories. Some trends—the declining quality of public discourse in established democracies—may require fresh thinking entirely.- Instructor
- Snyder
- Section
Section 002
Terrorism
This course examines the politics of terrorism, with a focus on theoretical and empirical studies of its causes and consequences. We will look at both domestic and transnational forms of terrorism. We begin with issues of definition, and theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of terrorism. We then turn to the causes and consequences of terrorism, considering questions such as when, where, and why terrorism occurs; which individuals and which groups resort to terror and why; who are the targets of terrorist attacks; and the effects and effectiveness of terrorism, its consequences for the outcome of conflicts, and for domestic politics.- Instructor
- Fortna
- Section
Section 003
International Crises Since the Cold War: Politics, Economics, Business, Law
This seminar takes a multidisciplinary approach to studying the international relations of the last thirty years, with a particular focus on the successive, often overlapping, and frequently mutually-influencing, crises in international politics, economics, business, and law during the period. While the end of the Cold War initiated in the U.S. and the West generally a striking sense of optimism that lasted for much of the 1990s, even that decade featured significant crises in the developing world, and from the perspective of today a number of that decade’s achievements are seen as having helped lay the groundwork for some of the subsequent international crises in developed and developing countries. The seminar attempts to address these large and interrelated subjects by tackling it chiefly in two roughly ten-year long blocks (and one shorter concluding period). The schedule also builds in “pauses” between the blocks around single years that served or could have served as significant pivot points, during which we can more explicitly consider how the various international streams (and periods) have interacted with each other. This approach to the seminar in international relations is motivated by three objectives: first, to emphasize the contemporaneous interrelationships between some of the most important disciplinary and professional perspectives on international affairs; second, to explore the ways in which decisions and developments that occur in one domain and during one period have difficult or impossible to predict repercussions in other domains and periods; and third, to underscore the many different disciplinary and professional paths to involvement in international relations and the practical value of knowing something about as many of them as possible.- Instructor
- Pam
- Section
Section 004
Theories of Revolution and Contentious Collective Action
The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to and an overview of theories of revolution and contentious collective action, as well as the concrete historical experiences of societies in the modern period that have experienced these phenomena. It is worth noting that in some traditions revolution is considered positively (for example, early American society (1775-1812), 20th century Russia/Soviet Union, post-1789 France, the 20th century Arab world, early Zionism, 20th century China); whereas in other societies the view is more or less negative (England after Cromwell, continental Europe between 1815-1914, classical and medieval Islamic societies, China for much of the imperial period, Japan, India). In the West the consideration of revolution goes as far back as Aristotle, so the topic is hardly new. To my knowledge, independent generic political science courses on revolution at the university level have been on the books only since the 1950s, becoming a staple in the early to mid-1960s. Since the collapse of communist systems in the 1989-1991 era, interest in such courses has somewhat declined, but it is doubtful that the situation will reach the point where such courses will disappear. Revolutions are historically rare, whereas contentious collective action, centered on social movements, is a broader theoretical field. The literature in this area for many years prominently featured developments in Western democratic systems, but works in this tradition began to be applied to the Soviet-type European systems in the 1980s and have since proliferated to “third” and “fourth” world authoritarian systems.- Instructor
- Akhavi
- Section
Section 006
Ethical Dimensions on International Politics
This course examines the intersection of ethics and world politics. World politics covers considerable ground, ranging from theories of state behavior to war and political economy. Standard courses on international relations consider issues of ethics and morality briefly, if at all. This one, by contrast, confronts them head on, and by drawing on works from political science, history, law, economics, philosophy and ethics, and religion studies. It is therefore explicitly interdisciplinary in orientation.- Instructor
- Menon
- Section
Section 007
Topics in U.S. Foreign Economic Policy
- Instructor
- Spiro