courses

This course provides as an overview of empirical political science and introduces important concepts, theories, methods, and findings in the discipline. While it is impossible to survey completely the broad field of political science, the course acquaints students with some of the major questions in political science and encourage students to think critically about the discipline’s best answers to those questions.

We cover basic concepts relevant to the study of different types of political systems (such as democracy or sovereignty). Students become familiar with the challenges of defining and measuring such concepts (for example, how much more democratic is Japan than China?) and also acquire some historical understanding of these concepts (how did the sovereign state system come about?). We also examine how political scientists assess causal relationships between social, economic and political variables (for example, does economic development promote democratization?) Students learn how scholars study political behavior (both peaceful and violent), political identity (of various forms, including class, ethnicity, religion and gender), and political institutions (analyzing, in particular, how different constitutional rules either concentrate or disperse political power).

The first year of the Advanced Seminar aims to develop students’ understanding of comparative politics, and to expand students’ knowledge about politics around the globe. The second year of the Advanced Seminar focuses on students’ individual research in comparative politics on a topic of their own choosing. 

• Advanced Seminar 1 and 2 emphasizes comparative politics of developing countries, seeking to understand in general why some countries are rich and others are poor. 

• In Advanced Seminar 3, students learn the elements of a well-designed research project and become familiar with research methods that are appropriate to different types of research questions. 

• Finally, in Advanced Seminar 4, students put their knowledge and research skills into practice.  The goal is for each of the seminar participants to complete a thesis project that offers an original contribution to the subfield of comparative politics. 

The Basic Seminar develops students' skills for academic success at the School of Political Science & Economics of Waseda University.