Course Level: Undergraduate

Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

Political Psychology

This course explores fundamental questions such as how we explain how and why people act as they do in politics, what are the underpinnings of political preferences, how these preferences change and how they affect political choices, by applying psychology to politics. The class discusses theories about human personality, cognition, emotion, and social influence. These approaches are applied to the study of political issues ranging from the development of the political "self" to media effects, political leadership and decision-making, ethnic and international conflict, altruism, terrorism, and genocide. In each of these domains how personal and environmental factors combine to produce political outcomes is explored. The readings draw on experimental research, surveys, and historical studies and discussion of these studies is the basis of the lectures.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

Politics and Money

This course challenges students with the entwined issues of politics and economics, from basic concepts to a variety of real-world applications. It asks students to grasp the multi-layered, complex issues at a theoretical and practical level, and to consider existing and alternative policy options.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

The American Presidency

This course provides three complementary perspectives on the American presidency. First, it considers a broad, historical overview of the institution and the men who have served as president. Second, it examines classic political science texts to see how our understanding of the presidency has evolved. Third, the class conducts an in-depth analysis of key issues facing the modern presidency. Classroom work is supplemented by guest speakers including academics, election experts, journalists, and others whose unique perspectives on the presidency further enrich study of today's modern American presidency.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

Authoritarianism in the Modern Era

Authoritarianism has remained a powerful model for states across the world. This course introduces students to the different authoritarian types, from fascism to bureaucratic authoritarianism to the new hybrid regimes that incorporate elements of democracy and autocracy into their framework. The course begins by examining theories of authoritarianism and then considers the myriad examples of states which have had or still hold to undemocratic systems of rule. Students gain a working knowledge of how to evaluate and compare authoritarian states across the world in the modern era (from 1900 to today), giving them the tools to understand authoritarianism's enduring power.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

Creating and Debating U.S. Education

Education is often cited as the key to long-term global competitiveness, but with U.S. students lagging behind their counterparts in many other nations, our education system is receiving more public scrutiny than ever before. Common standards, teacher pay and effectiveness, the role of unions and charter schools, the achievement gap, and changes to the No Child Left Behind law are among the hot-button issues and reforms being fiercely debated by policymakers and advocates across the spectrum. This course will examine the origins and characteristics of the U.S. education system; how K-12 education policy is created, implemented and shaped by decision-makers and influencers at the federal, state and local levels; and the key education issues and debates today and what this all means for student performance.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

Politics of Nation Building

This online course engages students in an ambitious introduction to the politics of nation building, approaching the subject in two ways. First, a short theoretical and historical analysis, including the basic issues at stake in nation building, the record of nation-building efforts, and what in the American political narrative (or its myth) inclines the United States toward leading nation-building efforts. Second, the course focuses on the story of three recent nation-building efforts, considering on-the-ground accounts from leading policy makers and policy doers, in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Course Level: Undergraduate

Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

Liberalism and its Critics

For better or worse, liberalism continues to define the poles of contemporary political debates. Thinkers such as Montesquieu, David Hume, and Adam Smith argued that individual liberty from arbitrary government, commercial republicanism, and the separation of powers are the defining features of the good society. Their critics, notably Rousseau and Marx, claimed that liberalism fosters inequality and alienation. Both liberalism's defenders and its critics continue to shape today's political controversies, often in ways that we are blind to. This course attempts to understand the original defenders and critics of liberalism as they understood themselves, with a view to making a critical judgment about what is living and what is dead in liberalism.