Courses

Deceptive politicians loom large in the popular imagination, whether it’s Frank Underwood of House of Cards, Lonesome Rhodes of A Face in the Crowd, or Willie Stark of All the King’s Men. And it’s not just a …

This course takes place amid the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign. We will make sense of what is happening by taking a wider view of U.S. elections.  Elections are essential elements of a successful democracy. Americans in particular are …

Mexican Americans are now the second largest ethnic minority group in the United States.  As a group they face problems of poverty, unemployment, and discrimination.  At the same time, Mexican Americans are culturally, economically and …

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the substantive and procedural aspects of criminal law through the study of key cases and concepts. Substantive criminal law entails such matters as: the basic …

Why does the United States Supreme Court change law? Do elected politicians influence how the Court decides cases? How do norms and institutions influence the choices justices make? The principal purpose of this course is to answer these …

The approach of this class is dictated by its textbook, a new text that is very different from the others that are available. GGW is organized by historical period, rather than topic: so where a …

This class offers a broad overview of politics in Germany, Europe’s politically and economicallymost powerful country. It is structured around several broad themes: political institutions, electoral system and elections, parties and party system, interest representation, political participation, political economy, the legacies …

The goals of this class are to: (a) teach students how courts use social science to interpret and make law; and (b) examine how policymakers can use social science to reform the legal system. Students …

Green political theory is an increasingly urgent subject matter for political reflection. This semester we will examine how key questions about politics and the environment are being considered, and how political thinkers, researchers, and citizens …

Every war must end, but some last longer than others.  What determines when a conflict ends?  This course will cover the main approaches to conflict resolution and war termination and study some of the salient …