Political Science

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught GLOBAL POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE (POLS-BC1605).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1605 must enroll in a Discussion Section of POLS-BC1005.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught GLOBAL POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE (POLS-BC1605).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1605 must enroll in a Discussion Section of POLS-BC1005.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught GLOBAL POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE (POLS-BC1605).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1605 must enroll in a Discussion Section of POLS-BC1005.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the principles of American politics and governance. Upon completing the class, students should be more informed about the American political process and better able to explain contemporary American political phenomena, as well as being more likely to engage with politics and elections. 

BEGINNING IN FALL 2025, BARNARD STUDENTS WISHING TO TAKE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS FOR INTRO CREDIT TOWARD THE MAJOR MUST TAKE POLS-BC1210. If Barnard students enroll in POLS-UN2201, the course will only count toward their major as elective credit.

Columbia College students who take POLS-BC1210 can only apply the course toward their major for elective credit.

Students may not get credit for more than one of the following courses:  POLS BC1210, POLS UN1201, or POLS-UN2201.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1210).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1210 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1212.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1210).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1210 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1212.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1210).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1210 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1212.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1210).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1210 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1212.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1210).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1210 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1212.

This course will examine the development of democracies and dictatorships in Europe from the ancien régime to the present day. It will analyze the nature and dynamics of European political history and use the European experience as a foundation upon which to build a broader understanding of how different types of political regimes emerge, function and are consolidated over time.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Comparative Politics (POLS-BC1510).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1510 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1512.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Comparative Politics (POLS-BC1510).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1510 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1512.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Comparative Politics (POLS-BC1510).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1510 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1512.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Comparative Politics (POLS-BC1510).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1510 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1512.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Comparative Politics (POLS-BC1510).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1510 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1512.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Comparative Politics (POLS-BC1510).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1510 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1512.

Climate change mitigation is the greatest global political challenge of our times. This course uses concepts drawn from the broader political science literature to analyze the recent history and possible future trajectories of interactions between international and domestic politics and climate change. It focuses on mitigation questions, and includes the international political economy of various relevant commercial sectors. It has no prerequisites, and no background knowledge is required. The course has two fundamental goals: to increase student understanding of the complexity of political issues and interests involved in global climate change problems, and to counter growing climate despair by suggesting realistic paths forward toward global net zero carbon emissions. Class lectures will leave significant time for student questions and discussion. There is also a required weekly discussion section.

What explains Russia’s foreign and security policy choices and its terrible relationship with the West today? We will discuss and debate the motivations behind Moscow’s actions, asking whether they have been driven by realist great power considerations; by Russia’s domestic patronage system and Russian President Putin’s desire to stay in power; by an ideology of ethnic Orthodox nationalism or neo-Eurasianism; or by decision-making factors that are either unique to Putin or common across human psychology. In turn we will examine how choices made by the United States and the European Union have affected Russia, and evaluate what all of this means for concrete recent and current Russian and Western foreign and security policy choices. Students will be encouraged to come up with their own answers to these riddles in class discussions and written assignments, and the course concludes with a rigorous negotiation simulation where students will apply the knowledge gained in this course in a practical exercise. This course has no prerequisites, and no background knowledge is expected.

Required discussion section for POLS-BC3003, Political Theory at the Border.

Required discussion section for POLS-BC3003, Political Theory at the Border.

This course is a study of the development of American political ideas, through critical analysis of the

writings of intellectuals and political leaders from the American Founding to the present. As our central

theme, we will focus on the traditions of American Political Thought (APT) as simultaneously theorizing

freedom and liberty on the one hand, and intense, often violent forms of domination on the other,

especially domination on the basis of race. Consequently, we will devote time to both classic readings in

APT (the Founders, Tocqueville, Lincoln, etc.) and to multiple strands of US political thinking that

challenge the dominant narratives of APT. In analyzing the competing traditions of equality and

inequality in theory, we will also explore the connections between this theory and practices of equality

and inequality.

Feminism is often recognized as a political movement. But is there a feminist way of thinking about politics? In this course, we’ll investigate the core premises, provocations, proposals, and tensions of feminism as they relate to specifically political problems, focusing particularly on feminist political thought as it developed in the twentieth century. Who is the subject of feminist politics? What is the meaning of “difference,” and how can—or should—feminists seek to organize across it? What are appropriate topics for politics, and what should remain private? Is the family a space for politics? The household? The body? How much of the personal can, and should, be made political? Are there feminist ways of doing politics? We will consider these questions with reference to texts from both feminist activists and feminist scholars.

Much of politics is about combining individual preferences into collective choices. Collective choice problems are faced by society as a whole and by the smallest group:  bargaining within and between the branches of government, campus elections, allocation of relief funds among victims of natural disasters, scoring of Olympic events, even sharing common space in a dorm room. How can preferences be combined?  Our primary theoretical approach is called social choice theory, which studies how we aggregate what individuals want into what the collective “wants.”  We will also touch on game theory, studying how we aggregate what individuals want and do into what the group gets, given that social outcomes usually depend on the interaction of individual choices.

Our themes include the rationality of individual and group preferences, the underpinnings and implications of using majority rule, tradeoffs between aggregation methods, the fairness of group choice, the effects of institutional constraints on choice (e.g., agenda control), and the implications for democratic choice. The aggregation of preferences or choices is usually governed by some set of institutional rules, formal or informal, and we will examine some of their effects. While what we learn will be useful for thinking about many real-world problems and institutions, this class is not concerned with actual institutions in full descriptive detail, but rather with abstractable features common to collective decision making and on the abstract logic of collective choice... and the paradoxes that arise.

Students will learn how to formalize varying notions of fairness, equality, and rationality. Students will learn about tradeoffs between them—what is possible and what is not?  Students will learn how different voting methods work.  Students will learn how strategic anticipation helps or hurts in social choice.

How do ordinary people come together to enact social change in society? Focusing on the United States, this course explores how everyday people engage in collective action from the ground up, through social movements, community organizing, and other forms of advocacy and activisms. In particular, we will consider the role of grassroots movements and organizations as agents of democratic representation and catalysts for political transformation for marginalized communities. We will engage key questions about why groups choose to make political demands outside of formal institutional spaces, what kinds of visions for social change they put forward, how they seek to achieve their ideals, and how successful they are. The course will focus on contemporary activisms around racial justice, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, and labor.

The term “kleptocracy” literally means “rule by thieves” and refers to the extensive grand corruption that elite rulers, allies and their family members engage in to privately enrich themselves at the expense of their populations. Traditionally, kleptocracy has been viewed as a scourge on developing countries, associated with greedy authoritarian rulers in conflict-prone, resource rich and/or aid dependent states. However, in recent years scholars and policymakers have increasingly become aware of the critical role played by international actors, institutions, legal structures and professional service providers that facilitate kleptocracy at a global level. Unlike other transnational illicit sectors such as narcotics trafficking or terrorism, many aspects of kleptocracy networks are publicly visible and perfectly legal. Overall, these networks function to enable the domestic plundering of these elites, the whitewashing of their reputations, and the exacerbation of vast inequality, both within the countries that kleptocrats systemically plunder and between the Global South and the West which receives and benefits from many of the proceeds of these corrupt activities. 

The first part of the course (Weeks 2-5) examines the transnational actors, service professionals and institutions that facilitate money laundering by kleptocrats. The second part (Weeks 6-7) concentrates on how kleptocrats launder their reputations, by presenting themselves as global philanthropists or business professionals and by acquiring residency in other jurisdictions through the growing market for citizenship.  The final part of the course (Weeks 8-10) examines recent developments in international policy efforts to counter kleptocracy, including incorporating such efforts into national security strategies, enacting extraterritorial legislation to punish corporate bribery, sanctioning individual kleptocrats and oligarchs, and amending libel laws in countries like the UK that are routinely used by kleptocrats to intimidate journalists and deter investigations into their dealings.  

Finally, throughout the course we will grapple with the methodological challenges posed by trying to study and detect illegal and secretive patterns of behavior. What are the tools, resources and research techniques available to researchers and policy makers interested in making more evidence-based assessments about kleptocracy and grand corruption? 

How can we build peace in the aftermath of extensive violence? How can international actors help in this process? This colloquium focuses on international peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding efforts in recent conflicts. It covers general concepts, theories, and debates, as well as specific cases of peacebuilding successes and failures. Cross-listed with Human Rights.

The course examines the development of states and nations from both historical and comparative perspectives.  It asks why states replaced other forms of political organization (empires, feudalism, warlordism) and why national identities came to replace or dominate other types of identities (religious, ethnic, local) at some times and in some places, but not others.  It explicitly compares the processes of state and nation-building in the past and the contemporary period, drawing on cases from various parts of the world.  The course also considers factors that may be undermining states and nations today. 

 Turkey’s (Türkiye’s) regional identity has always been ambiguous and multifaceted. While Turkey is sometimes located within the Middle East in academic writings, media reporting, and country analyses, at other times, it is listed among the countries of Europe. In fact, Turkish Republic has always been at the margins of Europe. Developments in Turkey had an impact on European societies while the political dynamics in Europe have always affected Turkey. This course not only reviews Turkey’s unique relationship with Europe but also the international and domestic political developments that preceded democratic and authoritarian practices in Turkey by highlighting critical themes such as westernization, liberalism, secularism, the role of the military, gender, minorities, migration, citizenship, electoral authoritarianism and autocratic legalism. 

Race has served as an enduring organizing principle of American politics. This course will
survey how race shapes politics and how politics shapes race in the United States. In the first of
the semester, we focus on the political processes and institutions that “make” race and
interrogate what we mean exactly when we say race is socially constructed. In the second half of
the semester, we turn to looking at how racialized groups engage in politics on multiple fronts,
paying particular attention to electoral politics and social movements. Throughout the course,
we grapple with both the challenges to and possibilities of diversity and racial justice in the
contemporary America. Topics include but are not limited to political representation, voting,
intersectionality, citizenship, immigration, community activisms, and solidarity.

This course explores techniques to harness the power of “big data” to answer questions related to political science and/or American politics. We will teach students how to use R—a popular open-source programming language—to obtain, clean, analyze, and visualize data. We will focus on applied problems using real data wherever possible, with a particular focus on R’s “Tidyverse.” In total, in this course we will cover concepts such as reading data in various formats (including “cracking” atypical government data sources and pdf documents); web scraping; data joins; data manipulation and cleaning (including string variables and regular expressions); data mining; making effective data visualizations; using data to make informed prediction, and basic text analysis. We will also cover programming basics including writing functions and loops in R. Finally, we will discuss how to use R Markdown to communicate our results effectively to outside audiences. No previous knowledge of R is required.

Randomized experimentation is an important methodology in political science. In this course, we will discuss the logic of experimentation, its strengths and weaknesses compared to other methodologies, and the ways in which experimentation has been -- and could be -- used to investigate political phenomena. Students will learn how to interpret, design, and execute experiments.

Students who wish to do an independent study project (I.S.P.), should speak with a Political Science faculty member willing to serve as sponsor, then fill out a Request for Approval of Credit for Independent Study (see Registrars link below) and obtain signatures from the sponsor and from our Department Chair. File this form with the Committee on Programs and Academic Standing, which must approve all requests. (It must be filed with the C.P.A.S. well before the Registrars program-filing deadline for the semester of the I.S.P.) Note that no credit is given for an internship or job experience in or by itself, but credit is given for an academic research paper written in conjunction with an internship, subject to the procedures outlined above. The internship and the I.S.P. can be in the same semester, or you may do the I.S.P. in the semester following the internship. A project approved for three or four points counts as an elective course for the purpose of the ten-course major or five-course minor requirement. No more than two such three- or four-point projects may be used for the major, and no more than one for the minor. An independent study project may not be used to satisfy either the colloquium or senior seminar requirement. Each instructor is limited to sponsoring one independent study project per semester. The Registrar will assign a POLS BC 3799 section and call number unique to the faculty sponsor. The Registrars ISP form: http://www.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline/indstudy.pdf. The Political Science faculty: http://polisci.barnard.edu/faculty-directory.

Students who wish to do an independent study project (I.S.P.), should speak with a Political Science faculty member willing to serve as sponsor, then fill out a Request for Approval of Credit for Independent Study (see Registrars link below) and obtain signatures from the sponsor and from our Department Chair. File this form with the Committee on Programs and Academic Standing, which must approve all requests. (It must be filed with the C.P.A.S. well before the Registrars program-filing deadline for the semester of the I.S.P.) Note that no credit is given for an internship or job experience in or by itself, but credit is given for an academic research paper written in conjunction with an internship, subject to the procedures outlined above. The internship and the I.S.P. can be in the same semester, or you may do the I.S.P. in the semester following the internship. A project approved for three or four points counts as an elective course for the purpose of the ten-course major or five-course minor requirement. No more than two such three- or four-point projects may be used for the major, and no more than one for the minor. An independent study project may not be used to satisfy either the colloquium or senior seminar requirement. Each instructor is limited to sponsoring one independent study project per semester. The Registrar will assign a POLS BC 3799 section and call number unique to the faculty sponsor. The Registrars ISP form: http://www.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline/indstudy.pdf. The Political Science faculty: http://polisci.barnard.edu/faculty-directory.

Seminar in Political Theory. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or the equivalent, and the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Please see here for detailed seminar registration guidelines: http://polisci.columbia.edu/undergraduate-programs/seminar-registration-guidelines. Seminar in Comparative Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. 

Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or the equivalent, and the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Please see here for detailed seminar registration guidelines: http://polisci.columbia.edu/undergraduate-programs/seminar-registration-guidelines. Seminar in Comparative Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. 

Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or the equivalent, and the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Please see here for detailed seminar registration guidelines: http://polisci.columbia.edu/undergraduate-programs/seminar-registration-guidelines. Seminar in Comparative Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. 

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Seminar in International Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. 

This course will compare and contrast the theories of the political, the state,freedom, democracy, sovereignty and law, in the works of the following key 20th and 21st century continental theorists: Arendt, Castoriadis, Foucault, Habermas, Kelsen, Lefort, Schmitt, and Weber. It will be taught in seminar format.

In this class we evaluate the puzzles and challenges that have and continue to face government and society in South Asia—with a strong emphasis on India—drawing on the analytical tools of political science. The course is divided into four parts. First, we discuss India’s historical and social context. Second, we discuss India’s state and political institutions, including the state bureaucracy, political parties and the institution of elections. Third, we address major challenges for democracy and governance, including pervasive corruption, ethnic conflict, democratic backsliding, and poverty alleviation. Fourth, we discuss India’s neighbors’ experiences with democracy and governance with attention to the Indian comparison laid out throughout the course.

The course has three main goals. First, to strengthen your skills in analyzing complicated political issues using the analytic tools of political science. Through discussion and writing, you will grapple with the many puzzles Indian democracy and governance in South Asia more broadly pose. Second, to help you to develop an extensive knowledge of Indian (and South Asian) politics and policy. We do this through lectures and readings that draw on a range of analytic approaches. Third, to place these issues in comparative context through engagement with theory and evidence from the region.

Fitting and understanding linear regression and generalized linear models, simulation, causal inference, and the basics of design of quantitative studies. Computation in R. Textbook: Regression and Other Stories by Gelman, Hill, and Vehtari.

In this course, we will discuss the logic of experimentation, its strengths and weaknesses compared to other methodologies, and the ways in which experimentation has been — and could be — used to investigate social phenomena. Students will learn how to interpret, design, and execute experiments. Special attention will be devoted to field experiments, or randomized trials conducted in real-world settings.
 

Prerequisites: Students should have taken at least one or two semesters of statistics. Some understanding of probability, hypothesis testing, and regression are assumed. Familiarity with statistical software such as R is helpful. We will be working with data in class throughout the term. The examples used in the textbook and lectures are written in R, and R tutorials will be taught in special sessions early in the term.

This is the first course in the two-semester sequence surveying covering foundational research in comparative politics across the developed and developing world. The course is designed for Ph.D. students preparing for comprehensive exams and who intend to conduct research relating to comparative politics, and has two core objectives. The first objective is to expose students to a range of arguments organized around questions motivating major research agendas in comparative politics. The second objective is to expose students to processes of theorizing, hypothesis formation, and testing and to strengthen students’ analytical skills in evaluating and critiquing political science research. It should go without saying that these two classes cannot exhaustively cover the many important works, topics, and methodologies in the field.

The Fall semester of this sequence will primarily focus on citizen-level and politician-level behaviors, while the Spring semester will focus on more macro-level institutions and applications of the building blocks covered in this course. However, it is not necessary to take the classes in a particular order.

Before capitalism, there was commercial society. This course examines European debates about commerce, luxury, and social organization from the late seventeenth through the late eighteenth centuries. We will survey a range of theoretical perspectives on the new forms of commercial sociability and political life emerging in Europe, whether triumphant, despairing, or ambivalent. 

This seminar is designed as an overview of the major debates in Judicial Politics, with deeper
coverage of a selection of topics. The primary goal of the course is to familiarize students with the
principal questions being asked by scholars in this subfield, the methodological approaches
employed, and the avenues available for future research. The primary focus is on law and courts as
political institutions and judges as political actors. We will examine decision making and power
relations within courts, within the judicial hierarchy, and within the constitutional system. While
we will concentrate on U.S. courts, we will also cover some material on other courts. We will aim
to clarify and probe the puzzles, theories, methods, and evidence presented in the various texts and
to assess the contributions they make to an understanding of judicial politics. We will explore
issues such as research design, causal inference, the role of theory, and the nature of political
science argument, in ways relevant throughout political science. This course will have a seminar
format, though I will occasionally lecture on material as necessary. Other than that, my role is to
moderate and guide discussion, relying on you to do your part.

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. A graduate seminar designed to explore the content, process, and problems of China's political and economic reforms in comparative perspective. Please see the Courseworks site for details