Fall 2025 Courses
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This course is an introduction to the study of domestic political institutions, processes, and outcomes across and within countries. The course surveys key concepts and major theoretical contributions in the field of comparative politics, including the challenges for democratization and democratic consolidation, the possibility of revolution, how countries vary in their political and electoral institutions and why these variations matter, and the power of social forces such as ethnicity, culture, and social capital. Country cases are drawn from different regions of the world and historical periods to ground students in the set of tools of comparative analysis.
This course aims to examine a range of contemporary issues and to explore the political and philosophical conflicts and controversies that those issues raise. So, for example, we might examine the concepts of patriotism and explore the tensions that arise between it and such other concepts as democracy or freedom or dissent or security. Readings will be drawn both from contemporary sources and classic political thought.
This course is a response to current events. We will examine the war in Ukraine, its origins, its causes, the conduct, and the prospects for termination. Rather than impose a theoretical framework up front, the course begins with historical background and a large amount of reading of publicly available sources starting in November 2021. I will then schedule one or two full class discussions, to solicit from the students what they think are the "causes" of this war. We then proceed to examine the specific conduct of the war -- which unfortunately will have a lot of content that will make you uncomfortable. (Students are of course free to skip over some of the more graphic aspects.) I will then schedule a session or two on how the conduct of this war address the causes of war. After all, war is supposed to do something that makes peace possible. A question to keep in mind, thus, is what that something actually is. We then turn to the prospects for peace. We will read various peace proposals and discuss their feasibility. At the end of this class you'll hopefully have a thorough understanding of this war, which is likely to shape global affairs for decades to come. Where appropriate, I will invite guest lectures with expertise on specific issues. You must also register for a recitation for this course.
The organization, financing, and functioning of the United States health care system. Also historical perspectives and the insights of international comparisons. Topics covered include the economics of U.S. health system, access to care, health policy and politics, and disability and disability politics.
Data analysis has become a key part of many fields including politics, business, law, and public policy. This course covers the fundamentals of data analysis, giving students the necessary statistical skills to understand and critically analyze contemporary political, legal, and policy puzzles. Lectures will focus on the theory and practice of quantitative analysis, and lab sessions will guide students through the particulars of statistical software. Core topics include descriptive statistics, probability, hypothesis testing, and linear regression. RESTRICTION: Students who have taken ECON 230, PSCI 205, PSY/CSP 211, STAT 212, STAT 213, or STAT 214 may not take the course. Must have laptop on which you can run R and R Studio.
This course introduces students to the questions, concepts, and analytical approaches of political scientists and emphasizes careful reading and analytical writing. It focuses on a variety of topics in political science, including the tension between majority rule and minority rights in the American political tradition, the origins of terrorism and war, the causes of underdevelopment, and the predictors of democratic stability. Readings are drawn from both classic texts in political thought as well as from books and articles written by contemporary political scientists. Written requirements include a midterm, a final exam, and several short papers on the assigned readings.
This course explores how to use surveys to make inferences in the social sciences. The course begins by situating surveys in the larger research process, touching on validity, ethics, and the evolution of surveys. It then focuses on sampling including canonical topics such as probability and non-probability sampling as well as non-response and reaching hard to survey populations. The course next turns to how respondents answer questions and how to write optimal questionnaires. The final classes cover analyses and reporting, and various domain specific topics (e.g., survey experiments, election polling). Students will complete a research project that involves designing and collecting their own survey data.
What does it mean to be a citizen of the United States? Who can even achieve this status? These questions have become politically relevant as the Trump administration seeks to end birthright citizenship. However, they are not new. Surveying United States history, this course asks what it has meant to be a full member of the American political community. We will be reading a mixture of primary sources and secondary texts. We will discover that citizenship in the United States has meant different things to different people, that it has been—and remains—contested and malleable. This discussion-based seminar will culminate in a 15-page research paper.
Drawing on current elections and campaigns, examines corruption, party polarization, changes in party competition, how the rules shape election outcomes (especially party nominations), the use of the internet in campaigns, and campaign techniques.
The course will cover legal history in Central and Eastern Europe in the period from the Middle Ages. It will provide students with the introduction to development of European legal culture, from the legal concepts of the Germanic and Slavic peoples, through the medieval schools of learned law to the great codifications of law of the 18th - 20th centuries. The class will familiarize students with the historical evolution of the most important doctrines applied by courts: in the area of private, criminal, and procedural law. It will also make students aware of particular similarities and differences between laws applied in continental Europe (civil law tradition) and in the US (common law tradition).
This course examines the interplay among gender, war, and militarism through engagement with feminist international relations and critical masculinities scholarship on these themes, as well as an exploration of their representation in media and popular culture. We will identify the historical and sociopolitical conditions that enable the militarization of a society and give rise to war or peace by considering examples from around the world. We will pay particular attention to the social construction of femininity, masculinity, and gender relations in a militarized culture. Weekly topics include security, foreign policy, development, peacekeeping, and human rights.
This is an undergraduate course designed to explore the role that race and ethnicity play in American politics. In this class students will focus on the 'big questions' surrounding race: What is race? Can race be measured - and, if so, how? How have questions about race and ethnicity shaped American legal, social, cultural, and political institutions? How have Americans thought about race and immigration throughout the 21st century, and how have these opinions shaped political engagement and behavior? This course will focus on political science theories and research about race and politics, though we will also draw on work from history, sociology, law, and economics.
The course examines how reforms to food policy in the United States make their way through the democratic process and how these reforms constitute efforts to democratize our food system, exploring how these efforts confront the same challenges that a democracy faces more broadly. How does our political system approach the task of reconciling the diverse preferences of the American public and the corporations that feed it, agricultural and health agencies, and the food activists and advocacy groups? How do we think about the concepts of representativeness, access, information, centralization, externalities, and regulation in the context of our food system?
An introduction to the legal foundations of the biomedical healthcare system; topics include national health reform, bioethics, the right to health care, genetic discrimination, and access to reproductive care. Primary law (judicial opinions, legislation) comprises the bulk of the reading assignments; students will learn how to brief cases and interpret statutes. Pre-requisite: PHLT 116 highly recommended.
An examination of international environmental law and policy with a special focus on efforts to address climate change, including efforts to forge an international climate change agreement at the 2015 United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference. This course serves as a companion to PSC 246, but PSC 246 is not a prerequisite. The goal of this course is to provide a foundational understanding of this rapidly developing, controversial field. Topics include consideration of the scientific, political, and economic drivers of international environmental law; the variety of tools (e.g., treaties, agreements, "soft law," voluntary incentive programs and market based approaches); and examples of how some international environmental issues have been addressed to date. Finally, we will examine the results of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference - are we any closer to a "grand climate solution"? This course will be taught through lectures, discussion, several concise papers, and a group project.
An examination of discrimination from a social scientific perspective. Topics covered include defining discrimination, types of discrimination under the law, testing for discrimination, discrimination experiments, and a survey of what social scientists have discovered about discrimination in the areas of policing, bail, retail sales, automobile sales, and home mortgages. Although there is considerable time devoted to lecture, students are encouraged to participate.
This course will provide a non-partisan introduction to the conflict between these two national movements. Discussion will focus on an examination of historical documents, in addition to understanding of how it plays out in literature and film.
This new course explores the relationship between democracy and the rule of law. Where the rule of law functions properly, elected officials and citizens alike are subject to the limits imposed by the constitution. In contexts where the rule of law fails, however, two different types of problems emerge. On the one hand, innocent politicians and citizens may be punished —think “show trials” and “witch hunts” under classic authoritarianism, or today’s so-called “weaponized” courts under democracy. On the other hand, failures of the rule of law may also result in protecting guilty politicians and powerful elites from accountability—think of the rampant impunity for corruption that plagues much of the developing world. This course draws on multiple literatures in law, economics, history, and political science to understand both the successes and failures of the rule of law within democracies around the world.
Why are some countries poor, while others enjoy a high standard of living? Why some enjoy stability and freedoms, while others suffer with corruption, repression and violence? Why countries stagnate or decline in their economic development. This course is designed to provide a broad theoretical framework for thinking about these problems, focusing on the political and institutional causes of differences in economic development across countries.
Why are some societies plagued by endemic violence and others peaceful? How do peaceful, ordered societies emerge and persist? This course answers these questions by examining the origins of political order over a long-span of human history. Using the tools of modern social science as well as historical and anthropological source material we will explore how states emerged from anarchy, how they have come to control the use of force, and the implications of political order for material well-being and prosperity. Each student is expected to develop and briefly present a research paper which investigates a relevant issue of interest.
By conventional definitions, the United States was the world's first modern democracy because of its early adoption of competitive elections, strong legislative constraints on the executive, and relatively large franchise. Yet in other ways the United States has been notably undemocratic, in particular when compared to contemporary democracies: persistent countermajoritarian institutions, partisan manipulation of vague rules, and disputes over the basic right to vote. This course examines democratic and authoritarian elements of U.S. political institutions both over time and across institutions. The first part examines the foundations of U.S. democracy, including legislative constraints, mutual forbearance and agreeing to lose, and franchise expansion. Second, we discuss elements of racial bias: territorial expansion and adding states, electoral authoritarianism in the Solid South, polarization, and contemporary voting rights. Third, we examine biased institutions: constitutional hardball, gerrymandering and malapportionment, and the Electoral College. We conclude by discussing unique aspects of the Trump presidency.
This seminar deals with political institutions and their implications for the behavior of political actors and their effects on social outcomes. We will emphasize both theoretical ideas and empirical research on political institutions and consider some of the core topics of scientific inquiry in modern comparative politics. These include: electoral systems, political parties and party systems, legislatures, parliamentary government, government and coalition formation, presidential institutions, courts and judicial power, federalism, etc. In addition to examining existing institutional arrangements, questions of institutional design will also be emphasized where appropriate. Prerequisite: Any course in statistics, econometrics, techniques of analysis, or the equivalent
Examines the development of warfare and the growth of the state from the French Revolution to the end of the Second World War. Further examines the phenomenon of war in its broader socio-economic context, focusing on nationalism, bureaucratization, industrialization and democratization.
In the past decade or so themes of poverty, inequality and power have taken center stage at the intersection of political science, philosophy & economics. This course will examine those themes. Our point of departure is local. The premise of the course is that Rochester and much of Western NY state are a developing country. We will focus on both the dire circumstances that make this characterization plausible and on potential innovative political and policy responses to those circumstances. We will address the nature of property, poverty, markets, development, firms and financial institutions. And overriding concern will be with the role of democratic commitments in political economic institutions. Readings will be drawn from John Dewey, Ronald Coase, Charles Lindblom, Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Amartya Sen, Elinor Ostrom, and Roberto Unger among others. Some prior course work in economics or political science will be helpful but is not required.
Game theory is a systematic study of strategic situations. It is a theory that helps us analyze economic and political strategic issues, such as behavior of individuals in a group, competition among firms in a market, platform choices of political candidates, and so on. We will develop the basic concepts and results of game theory, including simultaneous and sequential move games, repeated games and games with incomplete information. The objective of the course is to enable the student to analyze strategic situations on his/her own. The emphasis of the course is on theoretical aspects of strategic behavior, so familiarity with mathematical formalism is desirable.
The purpose of this course is to explore what has been called "democratic community economics" (Jessica Gordon-Nembhard) and its relevance for addressing deep, persistent political-economic problems in African American Communities. The focus will be on a set of alternative institutional arrangements including producer and consumer cooperatives, community development credit unions and community land trusts and specifically their roots in African American politics, their various current manifestations, and their potential contemporary policy relevance for promoting sustainable, local, community development.
This interactive course teaches 'real life' communication skills and strategies that help students present their best professional selves and develop a fulfilling career. Students will explore and articulate their internship, career and graduate school goals for distinct audiences and purposes as they develop a professional communication portfolio of materials such as resumes, cover letters, application essays, electronic communications, elevator pitches, project descriptions and abstracts, and online profiles (e.g., LinkedIn). Students will revise and refine their written and spoken work across the semester based on feedback from peers, instructors, and alumni. By the semester's end, students will have gained extensive experience with the communication skills expected in today's competitive environment. Course is designed for juniors and seniors with an interest in law, policy, and social good careers. This course may not be used to satisfy any major or minor requirements in Political Science or International Relations. Courses in the WRTG 27X series may not be taken more than once for credit. Prerequisite: Completion of the Primary Writing Requirement.
Through reading and critiquing political science research in American politics, comparative politics, and international relations, students learn how to select a research question, formulate testable hypotheses, find and evaluate relevant literature, locate or collect data that addresses their research question, analyze the data, and write a research report. Course requires instructor's permission.
Students in the Local Law and Politics Internships work 10-15 hours per week in one of a variety of internships in policy, politics and law in the Rochester area. Possible internship placements include the district offices of state and federal legislators, the City of Rochester municipal government, policy research and advocacy organizations, and the Monroe County District Attorney's and Public Defender's offices. Students supplement their hands-on learning with a series of short research-based writing assignments related to their internships. Contact professor Stu Jordan to learn how to apply. Students must have a B average and must be a sophomore, junior or senior to be eligible.
Please contact Professor Stu Jordan for more information.
These internships provide an opportunity to learn experientially one or more of the following: how government functions; how public policies are created, adopted and implemented; and how political campaigns work. Students intern in Congress, the executive branch, party campaign committees, and lobbying and advocacy groups. Please contact Professor Stu Jordan for more information.
This course in mathematical statistics provides graduate students in political science with a solid foundation in probability and statistical inference. The focus of the course is on the empirical modeling of non-experimental data. While substantive political science will never be far from our minds, our primary goal is to acquire the tools necessary for success in the rest of the econometric sequence. As such, this course serves as a prerequisite for the advanced political science graduate courses in statistical methods (PSC 405, 505, and 506).
Prerequisites: Undergraduates must obtain the instructor's (or a Political Science advisor's) permission to take this course. Students must have taken a sequence in calculus and have attended the Political Science two-week Math Bootcamp. The Math Bootcamp may be waived in rare cases where a student has already taken courses in multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and probability.
This course is the first half of a two-course sequence consisting of PSC 407 and PSC 408. The goal of the sequence is to give a rigorous introduction to the main concepts and results in positive political theory. At the same time, we will teach you the mathematical tools necessary to understand these results, to use them and (if it suits you) to surpass them in your own research in political science. The course will emphasize rigorous logical and deductive reasoning - this skill will prove valuable, even to the student primarily interested in empirical analysis rather than modeling. The sequence is designed to be both a rigorous foundation for students planning on taking further courses in the positive political theory field and a self-contained overview of the field for students who do not intend to do additional coursework in the field.
Prerequisites: Undergraduates must obtain the instructor's (or a Political Science advisor's) permission to take this course. Students must have taken a sequence in calculus and have attended the Political Science two-week Math Bootcamp. The Math Bootcamp may be waived in rare cases where a student has already taken courses in multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and probability.
Examines the development of warfare and the growth of the state from the French Revolution to the end of the Second World War. Further examines the phenomenon of war in its broader socio-economic context, focusing on nationalism, bureaucratization, industrialization and democratization.
The classical linear regression model is inappropriate for many of the most interesting problems in political science. This course builds upon the analytical foundations of PSC 404 and 405, taking the latter's emphasis on the classical linear model as its point of departure. Here students will learn methods to analyze models and data for event counts, durations, censoring, truncation, selection, multinomial ordered/unordered categories, strategic choices, spatial voting models, and time series. A major goal of the course will be to teach students how to develop new models and techniques for analyzing issues they encounter in their own research.
This graduate-level course focuses on mass political behavior within the American political system. The goal of this course is to give students an introduction to some of the major questions in the study of American political behavior, and how people have gone about answering them. The background goal is to help students practice reading work critically and think through the difficulties of social science research in preparation for individual research projects. The course examines political ideology, public opinion, voting behavior, media effects, racial attitudes, mass-elite relations, and opinion-policy linkages.
This course examines the politics of poor countries, classic social scientific theories of development, and empirical methods of analysis in comparative politics. Topics include clientelism, corruption, economic growth, colonialism and identity.
This is the first of two courses in the International Relations field seminar sequence. It is required of all students who will take the field exam in international relations. The course is not open to undergraduates.
Designed as a forum for upper-level doctoral students who have completed formal coursework to present ongoing research. Students regularly present research either stemming from their dissertations or from ancillary projects.
This course is the third semester of the formal theory sequence for graduate students. It focuses on teaching students more sophisticated tools for modeling more complex games. Specifically, the course concentrates on games of incomplete information such as signaling games and communication games and develops analytical tools such as Bayesian-Nash equilibrium, perfect Bayesian equilibrium, and equilibrium refinements. The course also covers repeated games, bargaining games and equilibrium existence in a rigorous fashion. The prerequisites for the course are PSC 407 and 408, or an equivalent background in complete information game theory. Grading is based on homework assignments and a midterm and final exam.