Political Science

This course considers key questions at the foundation of political thought.  What is justice?  How do we justify the coercive power of states? Do we have an obligation to obey the government? Who should make and enforce the law?  What basic rights and liberties should governments protect? How should our economic system produce and divide wealth and material resources?  What are the claims of excluded or marginalized groups and how can these claims be addressed?   We explore these questions through the works of several classical and contemporary political thinkers.  A major goal of the course is to practice the skills needed to understand a political thinker’s arguments and to construct one’s own.

BEGINNING IN FALL 2025, BARNARD STUDENTS WISHING TO TAKE POLITICAL THEORY FOR INTRO CREDIT TOWARD THE MAJOR MUST TAKE POLS-BC1110. If Barnard students enroll in POLS-UN2101, the course will only count toward their major as elective credit.

Columbia College students who take POLS-BC1110 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 BC1110, POLS UN1101, or POLS-UN2101.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Political Theory (POLS-BC1110).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1110 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1112.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Political Theory (POLS-BC1110).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1110 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1112.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Political Theory (POLS-BC1110).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1110 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1112.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Political Theory (POLS-BC1110).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1110 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1112.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Political Theory (POLS-BC1110).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1110 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1112.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to Political Theory (POLS-BC1110).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1110 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1112.

This introductory course surveys key topics in the study of international politics, including the causes of war and peace; the efficacy of international law and human rights; the origins of international development and underdevelopment; the politics of global environmental protection; and the future of US-China relations. Throughout the course, we will focus on the interests of the many actors of world politics, including states, politicians, firms, bureaucracies, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations; the interactions between them; and the institutions in which they operate. By the end of the semester, students will be better equipped to systematically study international relations and make informed contributions to critical policy debates.

BEGINNING IN FALL 2025, BARNARD STUDENTS WISHING TO TAKE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS FOR INTRO CREDIT TOWARD THE MAJOR MUST TAKE POLS-BC1610. If Barnard students enroll in POLS-UN2601, the course will only count toward their major as elective credit.

Columbia College students who take POLS-BC1610 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 BC1610, POLS UN1601, or POLS-UN2601.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

Required Discussion Section for Barnard-taught Intro to American Politics (POLS-BC1610).

Students enrolled in POLS-BC1610 must enroll in a section of POLS-BC1612.

This course introduces students to the analysis and recent history of military and other coercive actions in today’s fast-changing global system. It asks what causes states and non-state actors to take various violent and coercive actions internationally, and what the consequences (often unintended) of those actions are. It examines international wars and invasions, alliances, economic sanctions and chokepoints, international terrorism, nuclear weapons, the use of airstrikes and drones, and cyber conflict and other forms of gray-zone warfare. While we cannot cover the full gamut of relevant topics or geographical areas in the time available, this lecture course approaches these issues by analyzing and discussing selected current and recent events, using theories drawn from political science, other social sciences, and the policy world. The course’s primary goals are to use examples of current international security issues to develop students’ ability to analyze and critique competing cause-and-effect arguments, and to pose their own causal arguments about crucial global events.

Not open to students who have already received credit for POLS BC3118, Colloquium on Problems in International Security.

DISCUSSION SECTION FOR INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATION SECURITY 

DISCUSSION SECTION FOR INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATION SECURITY 

The 21st century demands a deep understanding of how political institutions, leaders, and citizens navigate an ever-changing political, economic, and technological landscape. This course aims to foster informed civic participation and critical thinking.  To achieve this goal, the course will equip students with essential knowledge about what political science is and what are the most important current debates.  Students will learn from recent political science research from the Columbia Department of Political Science. While such insights are typically confined to specialized courses, this course is designed to make them accessible to a broader audience, bridging the gap and preparing all students to thrive in an ever-more complex political world. 

The course will also guide those who are interested in pursuing a political science major to understand the different subfields and the work being done within them, as well as the methods being used

The Arctic region is warming four times faster than the global average, and the Arctic Ocean is likely to become ice-free in summer months much faster than anyone had expected even a few years ago. This is having a huge impact on the politics of the region, and is what social scientists call a “natural experiment” (even though it is the result of human activity) or an “exogenous shock” to the status quo. A second “endogenous” shock (meaning that it came from an actor inside the region) happened when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even though Ukraine is not in the Arctic. This is because Russia is the largest Arctic state by both landmass and population, while all seven of the other Arctic states are now NATO members. The facts of both climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have enormous implications for virtually every realm of Arctic politics and policy, and in turn for concerns that extend beyond the Arctic: from local governance to cooperative international institutions, from commercial trade to military security, from environmental disasters to economic windfalls (including for indigenous communities). In this lecture course we will explore these changes and their implications in depth. 

This course will analyze ways that law and policy in the United States construct and regulate gender.  We will explore some of the general themes and debates that have emerged as feminists seek to understand and critique law’s explicit and implicit constructions of gender as they relate to various groups of individuals, including those who identify as women, men, nonbinary, gender queer, or otherwise.  We also will discuss specific applications of feminist theory to law and social policy, including topics related to work and wealth distribution, intimate and familial relationships, the race of gender and the gender of race, identity performance and constraints on agency, the regulation of sexuality, and various forms of violence.  Throughout the semester, students will be expected to engage in their own legal and theoretical analyses, both in writing and during class discussions. 

The course provides a broad overview of the comparative politics subfield by focusing on important substantive questions about the world today.  Particular attention will be paid to understanding differences between democracies and autocracies, on one hand, and between different forms of democracy, on the other.  What influences whether countries become and/or stay democratic?  On this basis, should we expect China to democratize?  Why do we care if a country is democratic or not?  Do democracies perform better (or worse) than non-democracies in policy areas of importance?  What is “good representation” and how do political institutions affect the prospects for achieving it?  How does the choice of democratic institutions influence the prospects for stable and successful democracy?  Are there particular institutional forms that are appropriate in particular contexts (such as ethnically divided Iraq), or do cultural factors overwhelm institutional considerations? 

In addressing these broad questions, the course has three ancillary goals.  The first is to teach students how to pose and evaluate falsifiable theoretical arguments about substantive questions of interest.  The second is to introduce the quantitative, formal and qualitative methodologies that political scientists use to develop and evaluate arguments.  Finally, the course will require students to develop knowledge of the political systems of a number of foreign countries.

Why do countries go to war? What conditions foster international cooperation? How do alliances between countries function? How are countries affected by global trade and investment, and in turn how does the political economy of individual countries shape international conflict and cooperation? How do ideas and culture (including both positive ideas like human rights and negative ideas like racism) affect international politics? What role do individuals and groups play in shaping international politics? What explains the international response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Why isn’t there significant cooperation on climate change, and can a new global cooperation emerge? What issues have garnered international attention, and how has that shaped the countries’ cooperation? What causes terrorism? Is the proliferation of nuclear (or cyber) weapons a threat to peace, and if so, how should the world response? Does UN peacekeeping work?

In this course we will begin to grapple with these questions. We will use theories developed by philosophers, political scientists and policy analysts, and we will examine the historical roots of today’s problems, in order to explain and predict the patterns of international politics and the possibilities for change. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to choose and develop their own theories to explain events.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the semester, students will accomplish the following:

• Demonstrate broad factual and causal knowledge of important current and historical issues in international relations.
• Apply contending theories from the political science literature and the policy world to analyze, compare, and evaluate events and trends in international relations.
• Assess the value of competing theories in explaining events.
• Synthesize facts and arguments across cases in order to reason critically and argue creatively, through both oral discussions in section and written essays.

This course is a survey of modern political theory (approximately the 16th-19th centuries), examining the revolutionary challenges to classical and medieval political philosophy posed by such writers as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, and Marx. Our work seeks to address themes and questions such as: what is modern about modern political theory? What is human nature? What is power and how is it deployed? What are the possibilities and limits of social contract theory? What are the nature and scope of rights, duties, freedom, and equality? What is the relation between the state and the individual? What are rights and do they authorize political resistance? What are the core modern political values and how do modern political theorists grapple with their implementation? Does modernity signify an age of progress in terms of knowledge about the world and freedom for human beings? Or do modern technological, political and social developments actually constitute a new kind of prison? How do modern political thinkers conceptualize or fail to conceptualize race and gender? In what ways can modern political thought animate thinking about contemporary politics?

Simultaneously, we seek to critically engage with these classic texts about politics, political subjects, and political life in two ways. First, we will question what “modern” or “modernity” means historically and theoretically; in doing so, we will interrogate practices and theories of exclusion and violence that seek to grant only some subjects and collectivities access to the presumed progress of “modernity.” Second, and in a related vein, we will analyze these texts for the discourses of race and gender they produce, both explicitly and tacitly. We pursue these objectives by examining contemporary readings of this time period and of the theorists upon whom we will focus.

The origin and development of the contemporary roles of the President as a decision maker and the
importance of the presidency in the American Political System. Studies examining the selection process
and the relationship between presidents and other decision- making actors, such as the Congress,
interest groups, the courts and the bureaucracy, will be used to inform the students to help critically
analyze both continuity and changes in the influence of the office.
This course examines the American presidency from both an academic and applied perspective. The
executive branch of government has changed more than the others, especially over the past century.
As America has moved from a legislative centered government to an executive centered one, it
becomes important to understand the intricacies of presidents and of the presidency. This course
examines the individuals who have held this office and stand as the head of state and government,
along with the institutional structure of the executive branch that consists of departments, agencies,
offices that employ over two million people. The course covers the complexities and struggles
administrations have in navigating internal politics, along with public expectations and approval,
influencing relations with Congress and the courts, and navigating global politics around security and
economic interests.

When is violence used against noncombatants in conflicts and what is the impact of such violence? This course focuses on violence against civilians by armed organizations, whether states or non-state actors. We will examine a variety of explanations for such violence, including rationalist, psychological/emotion-based, and organizational approaches. We will also discuss the impact of political violence. Does it get the job done, so to speak? Does violence move terrorist groups closer to their goals? Does indiscriminate violence by the state spur rebellion or suppress insurgencies? Does insurgent violence against civilians make them more or less effective? While we emphasize violence intentionally causing harm to civilians we will also consider collateral damage.

The primary aim of this course is to help students develop a set of tools for thinking about justice. We will do this by examining a range of subjects, from criminal justice to distributive justice to the circumstances of war and peace and others. We will consider issues such as abortion, the criminalization of behavior, the death penalty, justice in sexual relationships, surrogate motherhood, global poverty, civil disobedience, and international conflict. We will also discuss the justice or injustice of legal and political systems in their entirety and a range of responses to systemic injustice.

This lecture course, accompanied by its weekly recitation section, will combine an intellectual history of competing conceptions of justice, politics, and modes of political change with an exploration of different models of political praxis. The course is intended to serve as a bridge from the Columbia Core to contemporary issues of justice. 

The course integrates three principal dimensions. First, it will explore how competing conceptions of justice have changed over the course of the past three millennia and will ask which conceptions of justice make more sense in our present political condition. From ancient ideas of substantive justice and natural law to more modern liberal ideas of legalism and the rule of law, the course will outline, compare, and interrogate different ways of thinking about a just society. Second, the course will investigate different modes of political action and how they too have changed over the course of history. It will explore earlier forms of political contestation and ask what political action looks like today. Third, the course will interrogate different models of theoretically engaging the world. 

The course will thus explore justice, practice, and theory: How do we pursue justice in these troubled times? How can history and social theory inform our current political practices? What is to be done in the face of political strife? How do we build more just societies? 

This political science course provides an introduction to the politics of judges, courts, and law in the United States.  We will evaluate law and courts as political institutions and judges as political actors and policy-makers.

The topics we will study include what courts do; how different legal systems function; the operation of legal norms; the U.S. judicial system; the power of courts; constraints on judicial power; judicial review; the origin of judicial institutions; how and why Supreme Court justices make the decisions they do; case selection; conflict between the Court and the other branches of government; decision making and conflict within the judicial hierarchy; the place of courts in American political history; and judicial appointments.

We will explore some common but not necessarily true claims about how judges make decisions and the role of courts.  One set of myths sees judges as unbiased appliers of neutral law, finding law and never making it, with ideology, biography, and politics left at the courthouse door. Another set of myths sees the judiciary as the “least dangerous branch,” making law, not policy, without real power or influence.

Our thematic questions will be:  How much power and discretion do judges have in the U.S?  What drives their decision-making? 

This Course is intended to look at key developments of American History through the prism of Supreme Court decisions and their aftermath.  In essence, this Course will address three questions: 1. How did the Supreme Court reflect, and affect, historic patterns of U.S. development, and how did it impact the legal and economic framework of the United States? 2. How did the Supreme Court respond to, or worsen, crises in U.S. history? 3. How did the perception of individual and collective rights and liberties, and of the function and role of Governments -- both Federal and State -- evolve over time?   

This course focuses on the political incorporation of Latinos into the American polity. Among the topics to be discussed are patterns of historical exclusion, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, organizational and electoral behavior, and the effects of immigration on the Latino national political agenda.

Discussion Section for POLS-UN3620 Introduction to Contemporary Chinese Politics

Discussion Section for POLS-UN3620 Introduction to Contemporary Chinese Politics

Prerequisites: POLS 1210 or an equivalent intro-level course in American Politics. This course blends “election science”—a new and growing subfield in empirical political science—with a close examination of election law. We will examine not only how political scientists study elections, but also the federal court decisions that have shaped the rules of American elections. This course will therefore be particularly useful not only for students interested in data-driven assessment of electoral policies, but also for those considering professional legal education as a next step.

In the course, we will engage the decades-long debates around what it means to organize politics around identity in the United States, particularly from the lens of marginalized groups. In the age of American politics where the term “identity politics” is often used as a dismissal or derogation of the experiences of marginalized groups, what exactly is identity politics? What do the contemporary anxieties around identity politics tell us about political life? What are the political possibilities that arise from organizing identity-based movements? Does focusing too much on identity politics overshadow concerns around material redistribution? We will trace the notion of identity politics back to its origins in Black queer feminism in the 1970s, and seek to understand its evolutions to today. We will bridge the work of critical theorists with the empirical study of identity-based politics, focusing on those who have sought to negotiate differences across race, gender, and sexuality. 

Beginning in the mid-1970s a democratic wave swept the globe. Before it began there were more than twice as many dictatorships as democracies in existence. By the wave’s highpoint around 2008, that relationship had flipped and the number of democracies had reached an all-time high. Moreover, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90, democracy faced no ideological competitors for the first time since the modern struggle for democracy began in 1789 with the French Revolution. Francis Fukuyama’s concept of the “end of history”— the world had reached “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government”—captured the euphoric, even triumphalist zeitgeist of the era. Today, of course, this euphoria and triumphalism has vanished, replaced by dramatic democratic backsliding and profound pessimism about democracy’s future. By 2024 the world had fewer democracies than autocracies for the first time in over 20 years and 45 countries were “autocratizing”: moving away from democracy and towards authoritarianism. This autocratic undertow has not only claimed many new democracies; older, established democracies long considered consolidated and secure have experienced significant problems as well. This colloquium will exam the literature on democratic consolidation and backsliding, providing students with an overview of the most important theories about what makes democracy work—or not. It will also focus on several crucial and illustrative cases of backsliding in the contemporary era, in order to better understand what is distinctive about the nature and causes of democratic decay in the twenty-first century.

A major challenge for governments across the Western Hemisphere is the complex relationship between illicit drugs, violence, and politics. We can see this relationship operating at multiple levels, from everyday politics in gang-controlled neighborhoods to the global arenas where governments debate and craft international drug policy. These links also reach back in history to global wars of empire and colonial rule, race relations during and following the collapse of the institution of slavery, and contemporary drug wars being waged across the Western Hemisphere and other parts of the world. Today, the dynamics and consequences of the politics of illicit drugs touch all our lives in different ways, including individual and family struggles with substance abuse, everyday encounters with militarized police, and the strains on democracy and citizenship, among many others. This course will examine some of these dynamics and consequences with a theoretical and empirical focus mainly on Latin America and the United States. Throughout our time together we will connect these pressing issues to broader theories, concepts and empirical findings in political science. The course is divided into several individual modules (denoted below with the headings A – G) under three overarching themes for this semester:

1. Politics of Drugs in a Historical Perspective: The first theme is a broad historical overview of the political origins of illicit drugs and the global drug regime. Some of the main questions we will tackle are: When and why did states label drugs as illicit?  How did domestic and global politics come together to shape the global drug regime and the “war on drugs?” What role did race and gender play in the early social construction of illicit drugs?

2. Illicit Drugs, Politics and Governance: The second theme focuses on contemporary linkages between illicit drugs, violence, and politics. Here we will examine the conditions under which illicit drug markets are either violent or (relatively) peaceful. We will tackle questions like: Do states always seek to dismantle drug markets? What is the relationship between illicit drugs and electoral politics? What role do illicit drugs play in governance by armed non-state actors?  Are states and criminal actors involved in the drug trade always at “war” with each other? 

3. Democracy, Citizenship, and the War on Drugs: The third and final theme centers on the political consequences of the war on drugs for questions of democracy and citizenship in the Western Hemisphere. Some of the questions that will help us make sense of these consequences are:  How does the war on drugs impact democracy and citizenship? What is the political economy of imprisonment? And in what ways do imprisonment and police-citizen interactions – stemming from the war on drugs – shape individual and collective political behavior and political subjectivity?

Discussion Section for POLS-UN3565 Drugs and Politics in the Americas

Discussion Section for POLS-UN3565 Drugs and Politics in the Americas

Discussion Section for POLS-UN3565 Drugs and Politics in the Americas

This undergraduate course is designed to introduce to students who have limited knowledge of China some basic aspects of political institutions and processes as well as major events in Chinese political life under the communists since 1949, focusing on the post-Mao reform period since 1978. It examines economic and political development in China--their causes, patterns, consequences, and implications--in a broader context of transition from authoritarianism and state socialism. In this class, we will apply some concepts and theories in comparative politics in analyzing Chinese politics. By taking this class, students are expected to gain substantial knowledge about contemporary Chinese politics and acquire some basic ability to apply such knowledge to relate to and analyze current affairs concerning China.

Over the past thousand years, modern capitalism has expanded from its European starting point to the entire world. Modern economic activity started with a commercial revolution in the late Middle Ages, concentrated in European city states like Venice and Genoa. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, European colonialism spread this commercial revolution around the globe. The Industrial Revolution in northwestern Europe led to unprecedented and sustained economic growth, which allowed European nations to dominate the rest of the world economically, politically, and militarily, with mixed results for the rest of the world. Over the past hundred years, global capitalism has continued to present countries, and the people in them, with enormous opportunities, crushing constraints, and major political dilemmas. 

The course is an introductory overview of the economics and politics of international economic activity in historical and theoretical perspective. 

Over the past thousand years, modern capitalism has expanded from its European starting point to the entire world. Modern economic activity started with a commercial revolution in the late Middle Ages, concentrated in European city states like Venice and Genoa. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, European colonialism spread this commercial revolution around the globe. The Industrial Revolution in northwestern Europe led to unprecedented and sustained economic growth, which allowed European nations to dominate the rest of the world economically, politically, and militarily, with mixed results for the rest of the world. Over the past hundred years, global capitalism has continued to present countries, and the people in them, with enormous opportunities, crushing constraints, and major political dilemmas. 

The course is an introductory overview of the economics and politics of international economic activity in historical and theoretical perspective. 

This class aims to introduce students to the logic of social scientific inquiry and research design. Although it is a course in political science, our emphasis will be on the science part rather than the political part — we’ll be reading about interesting substantive topics, but only insofar as they can teach us something about ways we can do systematic research. This class will introduce students to a medley of different methods to conduct social scientific research.

This course will survey the different facets of political life in Asian American communities, focusing on three major themes. First, we will examine the origins and evolutions of “Asian America” as an identity group and political project. Second, we will explore the varied ways Asian Americans have engaged in politics, from electoral politics to community organizing. We will consider topics including but not limited to electoral representation, gentrification and displacement, anti-Asian violence, racial profiling and surveillance, and immigrant detention and deportation. Third, we will consider the politics of interminority relations: how Asian Americans engage with other communities of color, through issues such as policing, affirmative action, and multi-racial solidarity. Throughout the course, we will engage with guest speakers from community organizations in New York City, considering the relationship between the classroom and politics on the ground.

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.

The state is often considered the foundational institution of political life. But what is the state? (Is there such a thing?) While human beings have long formed political communities of some sort, the form of organization we call the state is a modern phenomenon, and perhaps a stranger one than we tend to think. This course asks what makes states distinct from other kinds of collective organization and how we should understand them as agents of political life. What is the source of the state’s particular forms of power and authority? What are states’ ends—their imperatives, motivations, and goals—and by what means do they advance them? Do states have defining features and capacities across time, or are these always historically contingent? How do states both reflect existing social relationships and create new ones? How have states changed over time, and how might they evolve in the future? This course will pose these questions by reading canonical theorists of the state, including Hobbes, Hegel, Weber, and Marx, alongside scholarship in political theory, political science, and related social scientific fields, leading up to contemporary debates and problems.

This course will review and analyze the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to the present. It will examine Beijing's relations with the Soviet Union, the United States, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Third World during the Cold War, and will discuss Chinese foreign policy in light of the end of the Cold War, changes in the Chinese economy in the reform era, the post-Tiananmen legitimacy crisis in Beijing, and the continuing rise of Chinese power and influence in Asia and beyond.

This lecture course will analyze the causes and consequences of Beijing’s foreign policies from 1949 to the present.

Students must register for a mandatory discussion section.

This research colloquium examines party polarization in the United States: how it has been conceptualized and measured, what causes and consequences scholars have identified, and–just as importantly–where the concept’s explanatory reach ends. Polarization has become a fashionable diagnosis for nearly everything that troubles American democracy; part of our task is to take the concept seriously enough to see where it has been stretched thin, conflated with adjacent phenomena (e.g., trait-based and geographic sorting, populism), or mistaken for something else entirely.

The colloquium is built around a semester-long case study. Each student adopts a U.S. state (New York is reserved as the whole class’s shared anchor case and teaching example) and uses it as a running laboratory for the concepts, data, and methods we cover. Class time alternates between discussion of assigned readings and hands-on data analysis using R. Six scaffolded components–a background profile, a polarization diagnosis, a geographic sorting analysis, a trait-based sorting analysis, an impact analysis, and a causes analysis (the last aided by a three-week AI-assisted media project)–build on each other over the course of the semester and are then assembled and revised into a final research paper, presented to the class in the last two weeks.

The course mixes traditional and AI-assisted work. Early in the semester, you’ll do original, manual writing and coding–independent of AI–to build fluency, voice, and critical thinking skills. Later, we incorporate AI tools deliberately, to (1) facilitate a more ambitious scope of analysis than would otherwise be possible in a single semester; and (2) develop judgment in using AI as a collaborator that can sharpen and enhance thinking and analysis, rather than substitute for these critical skills. As we incorporate AI, we will work on critically evaluating its output and disclosing its use appropriately.

Seminar in Political Theory.

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: instructor permission

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 instructor's permission.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. 

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. 

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. 

Interpretations of civil society and the foundations of political order according to the two main traditions of political thought--contraction and Aristotelian. Readings include works by Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Saint-Simon, Tocqueville, Marx, and Mill.

This course will cover the development of modern social science and its relation to American history and culture. The different strands of the course are indicated by its title, where “rationalizing” refers both to attempts to understand society through rational means and to the role of social science in providing a justification or rationale for existing social structures. 

Quantitative thinking and social science have become increasingly prominent in our society. But modern discussions of the political relevance of social science do not always account for the ups and downs of particular ideas. For example, Freudianism was huge in mid-century, both within psychology and in the culture at large, but has faded for both intellectual and economic reasons. The Keynesian revolution dominated economics from the 1930s through the 1960s but then was contested by later paradigms in response to the stagflation of the following decade. Trends in criminal justice policy have followed ideas from anthropology, psychology, and economics, and political theories of international relations have affected and been informed by developments in foreign policy. This course provides students with an opportunity to learn about these and other examples of the development and influence of theories in social science, and to form a larger connection between intellectual, social, and political history. 

It is common for students to learn about just one or maybe two social sciences and not to see the way that different social sciences fit together intellectually and how they compete for influence. There’s a tendency to think of any field of study as being a static set of truths as laid out in textbooks or else a steady march of progress. In contrast, this course presents a series of booms and crashes: unsustainable enthusiasms for new ideas followed by disillusionment and controversies that are often never fully resolved. Through readings, class discussion and activities, and final projects, students should learn to see social science as a process that proceeds both internally and with reference to society. 

By the end of the course, students should gain a broad understanding of the development of modern social science and its connection to American politics and society. They will read different sides of academic disputes involving figures from Margaret Mead to Milton Friedman and will gain a historically informed sense of how social science has been influenced by and has influenced culture and policy. The course should thus have value both for its methodological and historical content. 

Discussion section for POLS GU4280, Rationalizing the World: American Social Science

Comparative political economy is the study of the relations between economy and politics, and how these relations vary geographically and temporally. In this seminar we will examine the way in which the political context | domestic and international | a?ects the formulation of economic policies and their outcomes, and also the means by which economic conditions in uence the stability and quality of democratic regimes, with a particular focus on Latin American countries. Topics include representation, accountability, and democracy; competing views on inequality and the role of the state; the constraints of globalized financial markets; and the
dynamics of populism and clientelism. We will also consider pressing contemporary debates in the region, such as rising violence, democratic backsliding, far-right mobilization, and the challenges of development in the context of climate change. The course will be of interest to students curious about politics, economics, and international a?airs, as well as those seeking a deeper understanding of democracy and development, and the challenges facing societies in a globalized world.

This course aims to teach students what, if any, answers social scientists have to the questions that concern anyone with an interest in African politics: 1) Why have democratic governments flourished in some countries and not others? 2) What institutions may enable Africans to hold their leaders accountable? 3) How do people participate in politics? 4) In what ways do aspiring African political leaders build public support? 5) To what extent does persistent poverty on the continent have political causes? and 6) Why is violence used to resolve some political disputes and not others?

Authoritarian governments try to control their citizens even after those citizens have left the country. They poison exiles, force down airplanes to arrest bloggers, use Interpol to pursue their critics, and threaten the relatives of émigrés at home. They also court their diasporas, with compatriot programs, scholarships, and the vote. Exiles, for their part, run media, finance the opposition, lobby for sanctions, and take regimes to court. This seminar examines the relationship between autocracies and the citizens who leave them. It asks why authoritarian regimes look beyond their borders and how they cooperate with one another, who leaves autocracies and what diasporas and exiles can do to the regimes they left, and how those regimes respond, from co-optation to transnational repression. The cases come mainly from Russia, Belarus, and Central Asia, set against comparisons with Turkey, Iran, Venezuela, and the Arab world. Open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students. No prerequisites.

Prerequisites: POLS W4710 or the equivalent. 

This course will intensively examine some of the data analysis methods which deal with problems occurring in the use of multiple regression analysis.  It will stress computer applications and cover, as needed, data coding and data processing. Emphasis will also be placed on research design and writing research reports. 

The course assumes that students are familiar with basic statistics, inference, and multiple regression analysis and have analyzed data using computer software (e.g., any standard statistical programs on micro-computers or larger machines -- Stata, “R”, SPSS, SAS, etc.). Students will be instructed on the use of the microcomputers and the R and Stata statistical software program(s) available as freeware (R) or in the CUIT computer labs (Stata; several campus locations) or through SIPA. The lectures and required discussion section will emphasize the use of “R.” Students may use whatever computer programs they prefer for all data analysis for the course. 

This is the required discussion section for POLS GU4712.

This course is the second course in the graduate-level sequence on quantitative political methodology offered in the Department of Political Science. Students will learn (1) a framework and methodologies for making causal inferences from experimental and observational data, and (2) statistical theories essential for causal inference. Topics include randomized experiments, estimation under ignorability, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, difference-indifferences, and causal inference with panel data. We also cover statistical theories, such as theories of ordinary least squares and maximum likelihood estimation, by connecting them to causal inference methods. This course builds on the materials covered in POLS 4700 and 4720 or theirequivalent (i.e., probability, statistics, linear regression, and logistic regression).

This is the required discussion section for POLS GU4722. 

This course is the fourth course in the graduate-level sequence on quantitative political methodology offered in the Department of Political Science. Students will learn a variety of advanced topics in quantitative methods for descriptive and causal inference, such as simulated-data experimentation, statistical graphics, experimental design, Bayesian inference, multilevel modeling, ideal-point and measurement-error models, and time/spatial/network models.  This course builds on the materials covered in POLS 4700, 4720, 4722, and 4724, or their equivalent courses (i.e., probability, statistics, linear regression, logistic regression, causal inference with observational and experimental data, and knowledge of the statistical computing environment R).

This is the required discussion section for POLS GU4726.

GR6412 is one of two survey courses in comparative politics offered by the Political Science Department. The two courses complement each other, but need not be taken in any particular order. The course includes a great deal of student involvement and is designed to help you educate yourselves about the major themes in comparative politics and develop the analytic skills need to conduct research at a high level.

This seminar explores key texts of twentieth-century anticolonial political thought and its postcolonial interpretation. It is an advanced course in political theory for graduate students. Over the last twenty years, postcolonial approaches to political theory have challenged many of the traditional categories and assumptions of western political thought. Some contend that theories inherited from Western social and political thought cannot adequately speak to the political experiences of the non-Western world. Others have been sharply critical of the complicity of Western political thought and modern practices of imperialism, slavery, and global inequality. This seminar aims to investigate the various challenges that postcolonial theorists pose to political theory and to offer critical assessments of the possibilities and limitations of this perspective. We will do so by reading key anticolonial texts alongside major postcolonial interpretations of these texts. We will compare how anticolonial texts and their postcolonial interpreters engage with questions of political theory – such as the relationship between universality and freedom, revolution and history, violence and power, progress and emancipation – in light of the legacy of colonialism and the promise of decolonization.

What kind of political thinker was Gandhi?  What is political theory when developed through political action?  How does nonviolent resistance connect ethical commitment with strategic judgment?  What distinguishes non-cooperation and civil disobedience from other forms of collective action?  This seminar examines these questions by tracking the development of Gandhi’s political thought in close connection with his life as a political actor.  Moving from London and South Africa to the mass campaigns of his Indian career, we will explore how his ideas took shape through experiments in nonviolent political action.  Close reading of his writings will be combined with attention to the contexts in which he wrote, organized, and revised his political judgments.

Topics include satyagraha and nonviolence; the critique of modern Western civilization; anticolonialism, nationalism, and swaraj; mass resistance, collective power, and democracy; individual discipline and political transformation; the state and self-government; and Hinduism, caste, and social reform.

Taiwan is a leading example of democratic transition and consolidation, the sole culturally Chinese democracy, one of four “Asian tigers” that forged a model of state-led economic development, the world’s 22nd largest economy, the dominant producer of high-end computer chips that power the 21st century economy, and a strategic hot spot considered “the most dangerous place on earth” in the context of U.S.-China strategic competition. It is the site of intense political contestation over national identity and complex electoral and party politics, and the target of advanced cognitive warfare from mainland China. It contends with problems of societal resilience in the domains of energy, food supply, communications, civil defense, and other fields. This course examines Taiwan’s political development, institutions, parties, elections, identity politics, social movements, political economy, and foreign/China policy, while placing Taiwan in comparative perspective to explore the extent to which its experiences are unique or illustrate general theories of political development, economic development, party politics, and international relations.

This course will prepare graduate students in political science and economics who have completed their basic formal and quantitative training for research in formal political theory. The specific substantive focus of the course will depend on the distribution of students’ interests, but topics will include electoral and legislative institutions, autocratic politics, political behavior, persuasion, and conflict. The topics should be of broad relevance for graduate students interested in political economy across the social sciences.

The course will be conducted primarily in seminar format, complemented by frontal instruction. For each topic, we will focus on a small number of relatively recent articles and working papers. Students will also present on topics related to their own research.

This course explores how generative AI (GAI) can be applied in the social sciences. After an introduction to large language models and multimodal architectures, students will learn how to use these models at various stages of the research process. Topics include using GAI for classification, synthetic data generation, tailored experimental designs, adaptive surveys, and prediction. Emphasis is placed on technical implementation and research design considerations, including prompt construction, validation, integrating model outputs into surveys, and replication. The course also covers retrieval systems and research agents.

Climate change presents arguably the biggest threat to humanity in recorded history.  It has the potential to change international politics in unprecedented ways.  It also represents a global problem for which both mitigation and adaptation require international cooperation.  Yet the study of climate change in the field of international relations remains underdeveloped relative to other topics in IR, and certainly relative to the enormity of the stakes.  

This advanced graduate colloquium (seminar format) will explore existing literatures and emerging research agendas on climate change in the field of international relations.  We will draw also on literatures and research in other subfields and other disciplines as this topic is inherently interdisciplinary.