Teaching

Some of the fastest-growing economies in the world now lie in Africa. Yet Africa is also home to some of the world’s most corrupt and violent states. This course will provide a variety of lenses through which to view these and other paradoxes on the continent, with a focus on security, governance and economic development. Topics will include the long-term consequences of colonialism and the slave trade; the politics of independence; the causes and effects of crime, violence and civil war; democracy and democratization; the promise and pitfalls of foreign aid; and the challenges of building strong, stable states. There are no prerequisites for this course.

It is often assumed that once a country achieves a certain level of economic and political development, democratic consolidation is permanent. Recent trends in American and European politics have led some commentators to question this assumption. In this course we will explore the causes and consequences of democratic erosion in comparative and historical perspective, with a focus on better understanding our own unique political moment.

Importantly, this course is not intended as a partisan critique of any particular American politician or political party. Rather, it is designed to provide an opportunity for you to engage, critically and carefully, with the claims you have doubtlessly already heard about the state of democracy in the US and elsewhere; to evaluate whether those claims are valid; and, if they are, to consider strategies for mitigating the risk of democratic erosion here and abroad. Readings will address both empirical and normative questions, and will be gleaned from a combination of academic and media sources.

This course is a cross-university collaboration. Faculty at dozens of different institutions will teach elements from the same syllabus at roughly the same time. Students at all participating universities will collaborate on a number of assignments, and will be expected to engage not only with their own classmates, but with students at other universities as well. Enrollment will be capped at 20.

What, if anything, can the international community do to keep peace in countries wracked by civil war? Why does international intervention succeed in some countries but not others? How can war-torn societies overcome the myriad challenges inherent in post- conflict politics, including disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex- combatants; repatriation of refugees; transitional justice; and reconciliation of wartime adversaries? This senior seminar addresses these questions through a combination of lectures, case studies, in-class discussions and debates, and readings from a wide variety of academic, policy and philosophical sources. While there are no prerequisites for the course, some familiarity with quantitative data analysis will be useful. Enrollment will be capped at 20.

This course is a survey of selected topics in comparative politics. Comparative politics is a huge and diverse subfield, and it would be impossible to cover all relevant topics in a single semester. Given the interests of the faculty and graduate students in our department, this course devotes more time to research on lower- and middle-income countries, as opposed to wealthy industrialized ones. Within each week, too, there is much more relevant material than we can cover in a single session. The readings are a mix of “classics” that you will need to know for the comprehensive exam and more recent books and articles that you can use as models for your own research, many of them published in the last two years by graduate students and assistant professors.

Quantitative Research Methods II is an intermediate-level course in statistics and applied econometrics for graduate students in political science and public policy. Topics will include causal inference; simple and multiple regression; statistical inference; categorical dependent variables; matching, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity designs; and panel data. I expect that most of you have already taken POLS 2580, and that all of you are familiar with core statistical and econometric concepts. We will cover much of the same material as POLS 2580, but with more depth and rigor. (You cannot relearn this material too many times.) Our sessions will be divided between lectures, group work and data analysis in Stata and/or R. Enrollment is capped at 14.