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).

This course examines politics in transitioning and young democracies. We discuss topics that may not be covered in other comparative politics courses, since many theories and findings in political science are based on either established democracies or authoritarian regimes. Drawing upon research on new democracies in various regions of the world, the course focuses on democratic consolidation, political accountability and quality of governance. We discuss how well political institutions function in new democracies and we examine some of the common challenges to governance in new democracies. Students apply the ideas by conducting case studies of new democracies.

This is a course on the comparative analysis of political institutions, understood as a set of rules that determine how political decisions are made, and who gets to make them. We will examine how basic political institutions vary across democracies, and how this variation influences representation, accountability, policy-making and the stability of democracy. We will also, more briefly, examine the role of political institutions in non-democracies.

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 study of political institutions is foundational to political science. As the “rules of the game,” institutions determine how political decisions are made and who gets to make them. In this course, we consider how basic political institutions vary across democracies, and how this variation influences representation, accountability, policymaking and the stability of democracy. We also, more briefly, examine the role of political institutions in non-democracies. Our theoretical focus is on how political institutions incentivize and constrain political actors, and thereby shape a wide range of political outcomes. We also consider how institutions change. 

This seminar operates as an  accountability  group and workshop for graduate students to present  work-in-progress on MA thesis, PhD dissertations, or academic publications in English. Participants are expected to provide feedback to their peers. The seminar is open to all graduate students, and is a required course for graduate students whose MA or PhD supervisor is Professor Kellam.  

Comparative politics is a very broad field of inquiry. This seminar does not aim to be comprehensive but rather to delve deeply and critically into areas of research related to seminar participants’ own research interests. Generally, the focus is on comparative politics of developing countries, and particularly new democracies. However, other areas of comparative politics are also welcome.

Comparative politics is also a methodologically diverse field.  This seminar is oriented towards quantitative research in comparative politics, but qualitative empirical research is also welcome.  This seminar emphasizes research design in comparative politics.