Government (GOVT)

This course examines global trends of democratization and autocratization, exploring the causes and consequences of different forms of government.

This is a First Year Proseminar, limited to 15 students, designed to introduce students to a specific area of the study of Government across subfields.

Government 020 provides students with a broad understanding of the political system in the United States. It is one of the four introductory courses in the Department of Government. The goal of the class is to train students both as citizens and as scholars. As citizens, students will learn the shared history of U.S. politics and be able to think critically about how the system has succeeded and failed. As scholars, students will be introduced to the theoretical and analytical tools of political science as applied to American government. By the end of the semester students will 1) Be politically literate, knowing core historical and contemporary facts about the U.S. political system 2) Understand important theories about U.S. politics, including theories about the importance and functioning of political institutions, the roots of popular political preferences, and the functioning and consequences of elections.

This is a First Year Proseminar, limited to 15 students, designed to introduce students to a specific area of the study of American Government

This seminar considers the evolution of constitutional law and judicial doctrine in the area of civil liberties, focusing on the Bill of Rights. Restrictions: first year students only

This course offers a broad introduction to comparative politics, the subfield of political science concerned mainly with political ideas, institutions, and behavior within states. The course examines such themes as the origins and functions of states, formal institutions such as legislatures and executives, the variety and impact of electoral systems, the nature of democracy and autocracy, internal and external challenges to political order, and the impact of international and domestic factors on state performance. Discussions of theoretical and cross-regional issues will be accompanied by treatment of individual countries and contexts. This course counts for the Comparative Government distribution requirement. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 121 Comparative Political Systems in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This is a First Year Proseminar, limited to 15 students, designed to introduce students to a specific area of the study of Comparative Government

This "Ways of Knowing" seminar is designed to facilitate a profound examination of political violence through the medium of film.

This course provides an introduction to key theories, concepts, historical events, and contemporary issues in the study of international relations (IR). The course has six learning objectives: Students will come to understand (1) the fundamental concepts unique to the field of international relations; (2) the major theories of international conflict and cooperation, particularly realist, liberal, and constructivist theories; and (3) several watershed conflicts in the last century, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Students will then apply this theoretical and empirical knowledge to make sense of salient contemporary issues in (4) international security (including nuclear weapons and proliferation, ethnic conflict, civil war, and terrorism), (5) political economy (including trade, finance, and globalization), and (6) global governance (including international law, human rights, humanitarian intervention, and the environment). In short, the course is meant to provide students with the tools to analyze contemporary international affairs and debates in a rigorous and sophisticated manner.

This is a First Year Proseminar, limited to 15 students, designed to introduce students to a specific area of the study of International Relations.

This course introduces students to the history of Western political thought from the sixteenth century through the twentieth century. Throughout the course, we will grapple with questions about the secularization of political life, the changing relationship between the individual and society, the rise of the modern economy, the development and critiques of liberalism, the hidden structures of modern power, the ethics of violent and nonviolent resistance, and contending views of freedom and equality. Some (but not all) the thinkers we read include: Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Max Weber, Michel Foucault, Milton Friedman, and Hannah Arendt.

No prior knowledge of political theory or the history of political thought is required. The goal of this course is to provide students with an essential toolkit of intellectual and practical skills for thinking about modern politics. That toolkit includes foundational knowledge of the major thinkers, concepts, and frameworks that have shaped Western political thought, but it also includes a set of skills and dispositions: of reading closely and carefully; of engaging in dialogue charitably and respectfully; of being open to seeing things differently; of developing clear, principled arguments.

This is a First Year Proseminar, limited to 15 students, designed to introduce students to a specific area of the study of Political Theory.

This is a modular guest-lecturer course that will include invited guest speakers at federal state and local levels of government.

How do political scientists know what they know about politics? How can politics be studied scientifically? How do researchers frame and test hypotheses? How do they collect and analyze data? The goal of this class is to prepare the students to write an applied empirical research paper on any political phenomenon. Students will develop an understanding of multivariate linear regression, with a particular emphasis on applying the tools to analyze public policy problems and knowing how to interpret the results. Through this course students will understand research methods and be able to formulate statistically testable hypotheses; interpret the results of multivariate linear regressions and think critically about the potential problems that arise when trying to draw conclusions from such results, including omitted variable bias, multicollinearity, interaction effects and transforming variables; and use Stata or R to conduct statistical analyses.

Building on the skills introduced in GOVT 201, this course will continue to develop students' capacity to analyze political and social data by covering a variety of statistical techniques. This course will extend the introduction to regression analysis and causal inference begun in GOVT 201, and it will also consider other statistical methods and data structures. The emphasis of this course will be on causal inference, and on the conditions under which a statistical relationship can properly be considered causal.

How do political scientists know what they know about politics? How can politics be studied scientifically? How do researchers frame and test hypotheses? How do they collect and analyze data? These questions, and others, will be explored in this course. Primary emphasis will be placed on quantitative methods, although qualitative methods will also be examined. The ultimate goal will be to prepare the students to write an applied empirical research paper on any political phenomenon. This course counts for the American Government distribution requirement.

This course considers the role of federalism in the American political system.

This course introduces students to the scientific study of minority politics in the United States. Students will analyze both general and specific research that speaks to the interaction of minority populations with a number of democratic institutions.

America has been described as a nation with the soul of a church. This course will explore the many ways in which religion and politics interact in the United States. One series of classes focuses on the political leanings of adherents to America’s religion traditions (including but not limited to Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and three strains of Protestantism in the evangelical churches, the African-American churches and the mainline churches) and the history of the engagement of these groups. Other classes focus on particular issues including the rise of religious conservatism and the reemergence of a religious left; the role of religious groups in the movements for social justice and civil rights; the role of faith-based organizations in social policy; arguments over the meaning of the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious freedom; and the specific electoral role of religious groups and why different kinds of moral issues mobilize and motivate different parts of the religious community. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 356 Religion and Politics in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This course will exam how our evolving media environment impacts our political process and discourse.

This seminar will explore American Institutions, their political development, and comparative alternatives through the lens of major reform proposals for these institutions.

Follows and analyzes key changes in the electorate that reshaped American presidential politics from 1960 to 2008. Topics include suburbanization, race and ethnicity, economic transformation, social issues, religion, and the changing structure of civil society.

This course considers the political and economic effects of plagues and pandemics, from the classical to the modern world.

Not a day goes by without a journalist, public servant, professor, or policy analyst invoking the term “secularism” in a discussion about contemporary American politics. But what exactly is secularism? What does it stand for? What is its historical genealogy? Who are those who speak on behalf of, or against, secularism? How is it invoked in debates about religion and politics in the United States? And why is there such tremendous confusion as to what this concept signifies? To think about secularism in the contemporary political context is to wrestle with some of the most contentious issues that confront our democracy. These include the question of LGBT rights; women’s reproductive freedoms; freedom of speech (both religious and blasphemous); the role of science as a driver of public policy; how students are to be taught in public schools, and so much more. In short, developing a robust understanding of the American secular tradition casts an illuminating light on these, the most intractable of our national dilemmas. In this course, we explore the long and complex history of the American secular tradition, and we ask what its future might portend.

"The American Regime" will explore the deep interconnection between America's founding beliefs and the American "way of life." The first half of the course will focus on founding documents - the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the criticisms of the Constitution by the Anti-federalists - and Alexis de Tocqueville's examination of America in Democracy in America. The second half of the course will look at various aspects of the American experience that have been subtly shaped by the deepest philosophical assumptions of the Founding, including the immigrant experience, the built environment, science and technology, culture and entertainment. There will be two 50-minute lectures weekly, and one required 50-minute discussion section.

This course covers the concept of true and false information, why it matters, what effects it has, and different approaches to mitigating it.

This course will address the role of incarceration in the criminal legal system.

The course is organized into seven parts. We begin by looking at the creation and development of the presidency and the leadership dilemma contemporary presidents’ face. The second part of the course discusses theories of presidential power while part three examines the structure and operations of the presidency with a focus on the principal units in the Executive Office of the President (EXOP), especially the White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the vice presidency, and the president’s spouse. The fourth part of the course concerns the presidency’s interaction with major institutions of the American Government: the executive branch, Congress and the judiciary. The fifth section of the course concerns presidential policy making in the domestic, economic, and foreign policy and national security spheres. In this section, the course will focus on the processes that have been developed to help the executive meet policy making and implementation expectations and make sound policy judgments. The public dimensions of the office will be the topic for section six. In this part, we will examine the president’s relations with political parties, interest groups, the general public, and the news media. The last part of the course deals with the personalized aspects of the presidency: the person in the office. The subject here turns to the psychological components of presidential leadership: character, style, and world view.

This course is an in-depth examination of the presidential nomination and election process in the United States. Topics to be covered include candidate strategy and resources, presidential primaries, state and local conventions and caucuses, the Electoral College, campaign financing, the presidential campaign, and party reform. [American Government]

This class explores the current political moment through media coverage from a diversity of viewpoints, as well as the latest scholarship in political science and U.S. history.

This class covers many key concepts in political behavior research with a focus on young people in American politics.

A study of the American Constitution in light of judicial interpretation. After a brief examination of the judicial process and contemporary Supreme Court procedures, this course employs the case law approach to analyze major Court decisions. The focus will be on the Supreme Court’s evolving interpretation of how governmental power is distributed and checked based on the principles of separation of powers, federalism, and individual rights.

This course covers the origins, protections, and jurisprudence about the individual liberties of citizens enshrined in the Constitution and the limits on governmental power over citizens. Our focus will be on the First, Second, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments (religion clauses, free speech, association, due process, and equal protection). Attention will be paid to the development of theories of individual liberties at the founding and in Constitutional jurisprudence, including more recent debates in the Court and scholarly literature. Special attention will be paid to the role of the Court and lower courts in Constitutional interpretation, including various methods of interpretation. In the first part of the course, we will track the evolution of Court doctrine about individual liberties. In the latter part of the course, we will examine modern doctrine within particular areas like freedom of speech, race discrimination, gun control, freedom of religion and the establishment clause, and freedom of the press.

This course examine the First Amendment in theory and practice through a careful review of key Supreme Court First Amendment cases.

This course offers students an opportunity to reflect on the US constitution and to evaluate its influence on policy-making, governance, and democracy in the United States. Since the Framers drafted the constitution over 200 years ago, the United States has experienced tremendous social, economic, and political change. Yet, except for 27 amendments, the written document remains unchanged. This raises many interesting and important questions. Are the constitution and political system antiquated in light of today’s world? Are the principles upon which our government is based (e.g. federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances) still relevant to addressing and solving contemporary political problems? Are the rights and liberties protected by the constitution (freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, etc.) still valued in light of the contemporary moral climate and domestic and international security concerns? What parts of the constitution (e.g. bill of rights) still serve us well? What parts (powers of the President, Congress and the Courts, the electoral system, the amending process, the impeachment process, etc.) can be changed to serve us better? This seminar is organized as a constitutional convention. As the new Framers, our goal will be: first, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the constitution and, second, to rewrite the document both in light of our evaluation and in response to contemporary American political values, norms, culture, conditions, and problems. During the course we will evaluate and debate important constitutional principles, the structure of our political system, the formal powers of our political institutions, the relationships between the major branches of government, the responsibilities and rights of citizens, and the relationships among citizens and between citizens and their government. This class is limited to 15 students. It is designed and organized to facilitate maximum participation and interaction among students. During the first weeks of the semester the class will discuss a set of common readings and debate the merits of the Founders’ original design. During the middle of the semester, the class will be divided into three committees. Each committee will meet during normal class hours, but in three different locations, to debate and adopt a set of amendments to improve the political system and enhance democracy and governance. During the final weeks of the semester, the class will convene as a constitutional convention to debate, vote, and adopt or reject each amendment proposed by each committee. On the last day of the semester, the class will debate the constitution as amended and vote to either adopt or reject it.

This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the operation and role of Congress in the American political system. The course begins by examining congressional elections. We will evaluate whether the electoral process yields a Congress that adequately represents all interests in the United States and analyze suggestions for reform. The second part of the course turns to the policymaking process. We will examine the major structures, players, and forces that shape legislative decision making. Students will participate in a legislative simulation to gain a better understanding of the competing pressures members face in their efforts to create policy that serves both the district and the national interest.

This experiential course introduces students to the people, practices, and power structures that define the U.S. Congress

This course provides an advanced survey of American political institutions at the national level. Our focus will be on the fundamental political processes within and between the Congress and the presidency. We will also pay attention to the research methods and approaches used by political scientists to study these institutions and processes.

Survey research is used to study a broad range of important parts of politics. These include measuring political preferences in the mass public, predicting elections, and planning and evaluating public policies. This course introduces students to modern methods for conducting and interpreting public opinion surveys, including writing a questionnaire, drawing a survey sample, weighting, and interviewing. This course also covers the psychology of holding political attitudes and answering survey questions, as well as when politicians tend to respond to public opinion, when they ignore it, and when they shape it.

This is a course in one of the most significant elements of democratic politics, the political party. It is possible to think about and even describe government without reference to political parties. But since political parties permeate every aspect of most governments, any real understanding of civics requires an understanding of the roles that parties play. After taking this course, students will understand parties from two important frameworks. The first is what we call “positive,” or what is the role of the political party. The second is “normative” or what should be the role of the political party. These two questions are of course bound up in each other, and we will discuss them in parallel. A better understanding of why parties are the way they are will perhaps inform our beliefs about how they should be. And different arguments about how parties should be no doubt have influenced the way they have come to be.

The Founding Fathers set forth a bold ideal: all men are created equal. They knew it was hypocritical. After all, slavery was an accepted part of life. This course will examine the impact of racial discrimination in the United States, starting with these bold, hypocritical ideals of the political elite in 1776. We'll uncover the impact of immigration, particularly from Latin America. We'll examine theories that attempt to explain the roles of race and ethnicity in politics. As the course transitions to modern times, we'll look at how parties and institutions both helped and hindered racial minorities in the US politics. We will delve into implicit bias, a fundamental component of modern racism. In the process of understanding race in politics, we will explore how charts and graphs can lie, and how they can help us understand reality. The course will end with an examination of our own bold, hypocritical ideals and current issues such as police brutality and racial disparities in our prison system.

The aim of this undergraduate-level course is to provide students with an overview of the politics of health care policy in the United States. The course will review the peculiar economics of health care (especially comparing markets and regulation as alternatives), the history of rising costs and policy implementation, recent Supreme Court decisions and legal doctrines, and then dive into the politics. We will explore why health care reform is such a polarizing area of governmental policy creation (why such vehement differences between liberals and conservatives?), why and whether interest groups have particular strength in influencing that policy, how and why different states make vastly different choices regarding reform, how policy innovations like smoking bans spread, and why the US health care system looks so unique compared across the world. Special attention will be paid to the Affordable Care Act and its evolving implementation at the federal and state levels across the country. Can the ACA ("Obamacare") be effective and a stepping stone to future reforms? Can it be rolled back if Republicans win sufficient numbers of elections, or is it too firmly rooted? While the perspective of the course is firmly rooted in positive political economy, no disciplinary background or special familiarity in health care is required.

This course is designed to acquaint students with the central issues in educational politics in the United States and the dynamics and effects of educational policies. We will be exploring the organization of elementary and secondary education, the nature of the interest groups and constituencies in education, the major current approaches to education reform and the effects of those reforms on students, teachers and other stakeholders. The course is lecture based, but will involve both student presentations and collaborative projects, as well. We will begin with an overview of the structure and financing of public education and then proceed through the following topics: nature of policy analysis, linkages between education and life outcomes; determinants of educational achievement and attainment; educational governance, including elections, mayoral control, vouchers and charters; labor and personnel issues; the standards and accountability movement; No Child Left Behind and the federal role.

This course will survey the science, economics and politics of the environment.

The course provides an introduction to the political and economic development of South Asia (focusing on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan). It draws on South Asian examples to elaborate themes relevant to the general study of political and economic change in other developing countries.

This course considers the political dimensions of housing in the United States.

Many problems in international politics can be understood as disputes about the demands of global justice. For example: do the global rich have a responsibility to redistribute their wealth to the global poor? Should institutions of global governance be designed in such a way as to be made more democratically accountable to the peoples they serve? Do powerful nations have the right to intervene in the affairs of other sovereign states in order to enforce human rights? How should states manage immigration? Do governments have a moral duty to prioritize the needs their own citizens over the needs of outsiders? If so, does this conflict with their generally stated, and often constitutionally entrenched, commitment to equality? This course offers a survey of recent efforts in political theory to grapple with these questions. Throughout, we will also keep in mind the more general dispute between realism and idealism in thinking about international affairs. We will read a number of contemporary political theorists and philosophers who have written about global justice. In the first part of the semester, we will deal mostly with works that are largely theoretical and philosophically sophisticated. In the last portion of the semester, we will analyze three pressing problems of international justice that occur in everyday political life and on which these theoretical resources can be brought to bear: climate change, international military intervention and the ethics of immigration and border control.

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The class on shifting boundaries deals with questions related to the formation and reconfiguration/destruction of political entities and peoples. We begin in antiquity and move all the way to the modern nation-state. We will study how polities and states have defined their territorial boundaries and "sovereignty" to shape (and adjust to) the international system of their times. The class deals with the definitions and demarcation of civilizations, ethnic communities, religious groups and other political/cultural associations. How such groupings effect territorial organization? The class will pay special attention to the formation of modern nation states beginning with Westphalian Order and the erosion of the feudal system in the 15th and 16th century. We will then discuss the evolution of the modern states, their ideologies and the raison d'etre, the challenges to the international system by transnational ideologies/Communism/Nazism, and Radical Islam. What are the causes of shifts in boundaries, what is the role of "sovereignty" as an aspiration and reality? What is the role of International Law? What can be considered "territorial legitimacy"? What are empires and could they last?

Ethnicity, race, and nation are three of the most powerful concepts in modern political and social life. They structure everything from the way we think about the proper boundaries of a state, to how we conceive of social equality and inequality, to what we believe determines a range of social behaviors from voting to violence. This course provides a critical examination of the history, development, and use (and misuse) of these concepts around the world. Readings are derived from classic texts as well as from contemporary social science research. Major themes include the origins of group identity, the creation of social categories through censuses and other forms of state intervention, the legacies of imperial and colonial systems, the nature of cooperation and conflict, the determinants of territorial secession, and the rise of nationalism.

This course will survey the various ways in which democratic institutions are structured and evaluate how democratic has governance been in various systems.

Recent advances in biotechnology are providing us with new ways of enhancing human beings. These include procedures such as cloning, genetic manipulation, creating ‘designer babies’, human-animal hybridation, organ harvesting and the possibility of curing diseases by conducting experiments on embryonic stem cells. This course will examine the ethical status of these procedures. In particular it will explore the question of the potential effects of this new biotechnological enhancement or ‘perfecting of human nature’ on liberal democracies, which are founded on the belief that all human beings are by nature equal. The authors selected represent a range of positions on these issues.

This course is an introduction to the political systems of the Former Soviet Union. In 1991, after seven decades of existence, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and its fifteen constituent republics went their separate ways as independent nation-states. While this course focuses primarily on Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan--the largest and most important of the “successor states”--it will also explore the very different paths followed by the others over the last decade and a half. The objective of the course is to understand the new political structures and the new patterns of politics in the post-Soviet states, the changing resources for power and authority, and the new policy issues facing the successor states. We shall also look back at the political system of the Soviet Union, the common ancestor of all the present post-Soviet states, to understand how their shared inheritance has influenced them all. Lastly, we shall attempt to discern the future directions of change of the post-Soviet states, and the significance of those changes for their neighbors and the world. Major Topics: I. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SOVIET SYSTEM II. THE FOUNDING OF A NEW RUSSIAN STATE III. COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE FORMER SOVIET UNION (I): UKRAINE IV. COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE FORMER SOVIET UNION (II): CENTRAL ASIA V. ISSUES IN THE POST-SOVIET POLITICS OF THE FSU This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 293 State/Pol of Former Soviet Union in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This course will provide students with an overview of the sources of contemporary Russian foreign policy (including the legacies bequeathed by the Soviet Union) and to examine Russia¹s position in the international system and her relationships with the great powers and with her immediate neighbors. [International Relations]

This course will explore the domestic sources of instability in modern Asia. The focus will be largely on the countries South Asia (India and its neighbors) and East Asia (China and its neighbors). However, particular consideration will be given to the rise of Indian and Mainland Chinese power in recent years. In particular we will look at how internal challenges and their links with cross-border tensions connect with global international relations, regional international relations and local level dynamics. The dynamics we will most assess have to do with identity, resources, sovereignty, ideas, and the distribution of power. The countries and regions most intensively under consideration in this course will be India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, the Taiwan straits, Tibet, Xinjiang’s Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the Korean peninsula. Students, however, are urged to bring experience or interest in other countries into they papers and into discussion. The growing prosperity of Asia in the last thirty years has fueled growth, funded arms procurement and sharpened competition for prestige in the region. Some scholars argued that, in the absence of institutions of the post-War European variety (such as NATO and European Community), Asian countries would be unable to manage this potentially lethal rivalry. This course will explore some key sources of conflict in modern Asia from the early modern period (1640s) through the waning years of the Imperial Age (1940s) to the present, with stops en route such as the three Indo-Pakistani wars as well as conflicts in the Taiwan Strait. The focus, however, will be primarily on the post-Cold War period in Asia. Students will learn to analyze and evaluate the causes of tension in South and East Asia since the late 1980s viewed in light of the 1997 Asian Crisis, the explicit nuclearization of South Asia after 1998, and the imminent rise to global power of India and China. Specific issues students will learn to consider intensively include cases where economic interdependence, extremism, ethnic relations are causes of tension and insecurity. Students will also learn social science reasoning skills and how to write analytic, argumentative social science essays.

This course deals with the modern status of Asia, considering politics economics and culture.

In this course we will consider African nationalism in the context of broad theoretical understandings of the nation and the state. The course will address theories of nationalism and the specific experience of select countries.

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This course provides an overview of the most pressing issues in international security today. The course is divided into three roughly chronological parts. Part 1: the Cold War and issues of bipolarity and nuclear deterrence; part 2: the end of the Cold War, and the themes of civil wars, peacekeeping, soft power, and gender and war; and part 3: the current post-9/11 era. The focus of the course is on part three, and in it we will examine such issues as terrorism, the rise of china, security in Africa, the human security debate, the doctrine of the “responsibility to protect,” peace enforcement, problems of children in war, resources and war, psychological insecurity, cyber security, and environmental security.

The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with current issues and debates in the field of international political economy. Students will gain familiarity with debates regarding the relationship between power and wealth, the politics and institutions of international trade and finance, economic development; the political aspects of financial crises, questions of market failure, sustainable development and environmental management, and the relationship between the global political economy and international security. They will be encouraged to apply these theories and concepts to contemporary issues and problems. For more details on this course, please visit: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jrv24/GOVT_288.html This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 288 International Political Economy in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This course examines the sources of institutional cooperation and contestation at the trans-state level. It provides a broad introduction to intergovernmental organizations, their historical origins and ostensible functions, as well as the global and domestic political forces that affect their operations and their effectiveness.

This course seeks to explore the theory and practice of international law against the background of the realities of international relations. The course seeks to improve students’ ability to engage in critical thinking, analysis, and independent learning. To that end, reading, discussing, and writing about the assigned material will be the central activities of the course. The goal is to improve students’ analytical ability and capacity for effective oral presentation through the use of a modified form of the “case method” followed in law schools and to prepare students for professional discussions of public international law that occur in the public, private, and non-profit sectors of international affairs.

"God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.” - Attributed to German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck Foreign policy is the art of shaping world events to the needs and requirements of a state—in our case, the United States. This class will cover the theories, practices, and recent history behind US foreign policy. Starting with the end of the Cold War and casting into the future, we will explore the major phenomena, issues, and challenges that have shaped and formed US foreign policy and what they mean for Washington and the world.

The purpose of this course is to explore international law relating to the use of military force. First, the course will discuss the law relating to the recourse to armed force, what is sometimes referred to as the jus ad bellum. Second, the course will explore the law relating to the conduct of armed hostilities, what is sometimes referred to as the law of war or the law of armed conflict or international humanitarian law. It is also often referred to as the jus in bello. Third, the course will explore methods of enforcing both these areas of the law, including an examination of the international criminal court. Finally, the course will explore the future of international law with respect to war.

This course will provide students with 1) a basic toolkit for assessing the debate over the "Liberal International Order" and 2) a comparative and historical perspective on diversity and change in international orders

This course is about international trade policy and law. It offers an introduction to the political economy of international trade policy, and the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The first part of the course is about how governments balance offensive (i.e., export-competing) interests and defensive (import-competing) liabilities in formulating a country’s trade policy. The second part of the course turns to the role of the WTO in settling disputes that arise among countries balancing defensive and offensive interests. This involves an examination of WTO case law; we will take an in-depth look at several of the most important WTO disputes. Finally, the course looks at the rise of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

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This course will examine how race and racism in global interactions play out.

This course will examine the politics of energy and climate change on the global level.

This course consider the theoretical and practical dimensions of International Relations in Latin America.

This course has three objectives. First, the course provides an introduction to the major theories related to the causes and consequences of nuclear weapons in international politics. We begin by reviewing major theories of international relations. Then, we engage scholarly questions related to nuclear weapons: Why do nuclear weapons spread? Why do countries try to stop nuclear proliferation? Do nuclear weapons deter conflict? How much is enough for deterrence? What are the broader ramifications of nuclear weapons on international politics? Second, the class provides a history of nuclear weapons in international politics. We structure the historical review through the lens of U.S. presidential administrations to examine the major developments and U.S. policy for managing nuclear issues over time. Not only is this history intrinsically important, but it also provides empirical evidence with which to evaluate the validity of different theoretical approaches and as a basis for policy analysis. Finally, this class evaluates the most important contemporary policy debates, including those related to: the nonproliferation regime, arms control, global zero, nuclear deterrence, nuclear warfighting, and nuclear-armed powers, including Russia, China, and North Korea, and potential proliferant states, such as Iran.

The most powerful idea of the twentieth century—an idea that instantiates a watershed in international politics far more fundamental and transformative than the Treaty of Westphalia—is the following moral claim: All persons everywhere have basic and universal human rights; Thus, “we” (members of the human community) are obligated to find ways to within not only at the national, but also at the international level to devise guarantees for basic and universal human rights. Since World War II, the international community has instantiated the norm that an essential moral obligation of the society of states is to promote, protect, and extend Human Rights. Morally, this obligation to uphold human rights ought to trump, delimits, authorize and/or orient the exercise of so-called “state sovereignty.” The syllabus includes classic texts on human rights as well as contemporary literature on human rights in world politics. We study: key international human rights documents; content of rights claims; international strategies for human rights protection and advocacy, and implementation; and predictable challenges in international efforts to do so. In their presentations, students explore the ways various international actors work to support human rights, aid those whose rights have been violated, and shine the international spotlight on violators and their egregious acts.

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The course will examine the relationship between race and liberalism in the formation of the U.S. legal system, focusing in particular on the use of law both to reinforce and repudiate legal codes and institutional practices designed to subjugate African Americans. Framed by the category of “racial liberalism,” the racialization of personhood, rights and public duties, the course will explore through court cases, trial transcripts, first-person narratives, and political philosophy how efforts to promote a color-blind society often undermined liberal theories of justice and lead to the deepening of racial and economic inequality.

When Audre Lorde argued in 1979 that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," the lesbian feminist writer challenged the marginality of black women in the feminist movement. In doing so, she questioned the epistemic resources feminists in general retrieved to grapple with political, economic, gender and cultural domination in the U.S. and abroad. To this end, Lorde's hermeneutical turn fundamentally altered the conceptual schemes and pragmatic aspirations steering contemporary writings on Black politics, freedom and justice. This course retrieves Lorde's critical theory as a framework for examining social domination and inequality in the current historical moment. We will then turn to figures such as W.E.B Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Well-Barnett to explore the major questions and debates that framed Black liberal, conservative, nationalist, Marxist and feminist concerns between Emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement. This historical framework will give us the tools for examining the major political categories at stake (and contested) in Lorde's project and within contemporary African American political thought: neutrality, double consciousness, domination, respectability, freedom, racial uplift, intersectionality and solidarity.

This course surveys the history, politics, economics, and morality of US immigration policy. Major themes include moral and legal arguments for and against open borders; debates over the appropriate criteria for admission and naturalization; the moral claims of asylum-seekers and refugees; the constitutional status of birthright citizenship; and the social construction of immigrants in American culture from the time of the Founding to the 21st century.

Inequality – economic, social, and political – has emerged as a major political concern around the globe in recent years. What is inequality, and what factors contribute to it? What are its impacts, and how concerned (or not) should we be about them? This course examines the politics of inequality in comparative perspective, examining evidence and cases from Latin America (historically the most unequal region in the world), Europe, Asia, Africa, and the United States. Drawing mainly on the disciplines of political science and economics, students will analyze competing definitions of inequality, explore the political and social causes that give rise to it, examine policies designed to combat it, and trace out its implications for economic opportunity and political participation. Course Objectives and Goals: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to: • Articulate and critically assess the principal definitions and concepts examined in the study of economic and political distribution, inequality, and redistribution. These include: equality and inequality, opportunity, the Gini coefficient, risk, insurance, distribution and redistribution, welfare, decommodification, pensions, health care, education, solidarism, privatization, retrenchment, reform, capitalism, credit and microcredit, conditional and unconditional cash transfers, political coalitions, veto players. • Describe the variation in levels of inequality and policies designed to address inequality around the world, drawing on historical and contemporary examples from both developed and developing countries. • Employ social scientific methodology to evaluate competing hypotheses about the origins of inequality, its political implications, and its future. • Formulate realistic policy proposals that address critical problems facing unequal societies today. • Engage and reflect on inequality and difference in their own lived experience, both as students and citizens of their respective countries and the world. Course Requirements: • Roughly 50-75 pages a week of reading. • Regular attendance and participation in class. • One midterm exam. • One final exam. • Two 5-7 page papers. The first will be a critical essay on the meaning and measurement of inequality, and the second will involve research on inequality (and policies to combat it) in a particular country and issue-area of the student’s choosing. • One final reflection paper, reflecting on one’s own experience of inequality and difference and how this shapes one’s political and economic beliefs and choices. Doyle Engaging Difference Program In collaboration with the Doyle Engaging Difference Program, this course will be infused with content that engages issues of diversity, difference, empathy, and student experiences. Thus, students will couple their academic exploration of the topic of inequality with a thoughtful reflection on their own experiences of inequality and difference, and how that experience shapes their identity, beliefs, commitments, and choices.

American political institutions and culture are uniquely the product of ideas and self-conscious choice, and those ideas, in turn, are uniquely the product of experience. Even to the extent events and evolving values have changed our institutions and the ideas on which they are based, they remain deeply embedded in what might be called our political DNA. To understand who we are today, and what we may or may not aspire to be, it is necessary to understand the foundations of the American republic as well as the ideas that continue to animate our political institutions. Consequently, we will spend the bulk of our time in this course examining the theoretical foundations of the Constitution, beginning with its roots in the early colonial settlements and continuing through the challenges to it that culminated in the Civil War. Finally, we will look briefly at how ideas of freedom and the role of government evolved in the late 19th and the 20th centuries.

The course will be an introduction to African political discourse; tapping into the vast ideas during the 20th century which shaped decolonization and integration in the continent; North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

This seminar engages students in current research on American Democracy.

This course considers the intersection of religion, values and democratic norms.

This course examines the relationship between the media and the American voter, how it’s changed over time, and what the latest tension and lack of understanding means for our democracy.

This course examines the politics of racial formation and how it relates to ethnoracial ambiguities.

Are democracies less violent than other forms of political organization? It is frequently believed that democracy is positively related to respect for human rights, peaceful management of social conflicts, and limitations on the state’s use of its monopoly on legitimate violence. Yet both classic and contemporary research in political science has shown that the relationship between democracy and political violence is complicated. This course will explore that relationship from multiple angles, considering the circumstances under which democracy may be a solution to violence, as well as those under which democracy creates incentives for violence. It will ask students to grapple with such questions as: when do democratic institutions promote stable politics in divided societies? Is violent rhetoric or action a good campaign strategy? Does democracy promote stability after civil war? Course readings will cover major theoretical works in the field, as well as studies of cases from multiple regions.

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This course explores the economic and social challenges facing large US cities since roughly 1965 as well as the cities' political responses. Its major topics include the changing relations between racial and ethnic groups, the political impact of suburbanization, and the political effects of deindustrialization and economic transformation. The course readings are drawn from recent urban political history and sociology as well as political science. The course pays special attention to the changing distribution of political and economic power in US metropolitan areas, and considers regional coordination and other potential policy responses.

The course will examine how the general election Presidential Debates, relatively recent additions to the electoral process, have become the most watched, and arguably most impactful, events in Presidential campaigns in the United States. It will review the history of these debates, how they have changed over time, and the impact that the debates have had on particular elections. Additional focus will be on how the candidates prepare for debates, how they recover from mistakes made in the debates, and how they seek to negotiate the debate format to their advantage. The course will also examine offshoots of the general election debates, such as primary debates, Vice Presidential debates, and American-style debates in other counties. Finally, the course will look at calls for reform of the debates, and examine the prospects for these changes, and what impact they might have on future debates. Course materials will include transcripts and videos of debates, and also scholarly and popular writings about the debates. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 378 Dept Sem: Presidential Debates in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This course will consider the unique features of urban and municipal politics, exploring the ways in which cities and suburbs are governed.

This course considers Presidential Immunity through a consideration of the social history of power and its exercise.

This course will examine the legal dimensions of the institution of the U.S. presidency and the practical role of the White House Counsel--the lawyer for whom the President (and the Presidency) are the only client. Readings will consist of texts in legal theory, case law, and press on major issues confronting the Counsel in his or her professional tasks. This course is the annual Mullen Seminar, which this semester is taught by Susan Davies, J.D., who served as Deputy White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. Prof. Davies also served as both General Counsel and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, along with several positions in the Department of Justice, including the Antitrust Division, the Office of the Solicitor General, and the Office of Policy Development. Earlier in her career she served as Special Counsel to President Bill Clinton, and as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy and then-Chief Judge Stephen Breyer. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School and a litigation partner in the Washington D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

This course will expose students to the real world experience of the Presidential nominating process and may include travel to primary states.

This course examines the relationship of polling to public opinion.

Nuclear weapons have occupied a central role in international politics ever since their introduction onto the world stage in 1945. The use of nuclear weapons by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki compelled Japanese surrender and brought World War II to a close. The vast nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union were fundamental to the bi-polar, strategic relationship that structured international politics for over fifty years during the Cold War. And while many analysts hoped that the collapse of the Soviet Union would lead to a reduction in the influence of nuclear weapons on international relations, it was not to be so. The threat of nuclear proliferation resurfaced as India, Pakistan, and more recently, North Korea have conducted nuclear tests. Other regional powers, including Iran, Iraq, and Libya, have pursued, or are pursuing, nuclear capabilities. The terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 demonstrated that if t! errorists, intent on carrying out mass-casualty attacks, acquired nuclear weapons, the results would likley be catastrophic. Indeed, in his 2007 annual report to Congress on the projected threats to the national security of the United States of America, Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell assessed that nuclear proliferation poses one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security. This course analyzes the role of nuclear weapons in international relations. We will begin by learning the different paths by which countries acquire nuclear weapons. We will examine why nuclear weapons spread and the effect of nuclear proliferation on international politics. We will also consider policy options for preventing nuclear proliferation and managing its consequences. To accomplish this task, we will draw on major theoretical approaches, including proliferation optimism, proliferation pessimism, and nuclear deterrence theory. We will also analyze important cases of nuclear proliferation and instances of militarized disputes between nuclear-armed states.

This class examines the growing political impact of the Internet in various areas, including access to information, communication, participation, fundraising, public opinion, interactions among citizens, interactions between citizens and politicians, and Internet security and terrorism.

Child poverty is worse in the U.S. than in other industrialized countries in western Europe and Scandinavia. Paid parental leave remains rare in the U.S., though not elsewhere. Enormous amounts of money are spent on K-12 education, yet U.S. test score results are disappointing and characterized by substantial gaps between white students and students of color. How did we reach this point? How bad is it? What do we do about it?The purpose of this course is to understand the politics of children’s policy and the difficult policy choices that we confront in such areas as child health, early childhood education, child welfare, education, and juvenile justice policy. Why do children face an uphill battle in public policy debates and what strategies and arguments enable children’s advocates to overcome these obstacles from time to time? In this course, we examine the politics of child policymaking, including the roles of politicians, interest groups, and political parties in shaping public policies at both the state and federal levels. We scrutinize the best available evidence on which health, education, and welfare programs work and which ones do not. Finally, we identify pithy arguments and issue frames that might reshape the world in which U.S. children grow up, improve their experiences, and produce better outcomes for all.The course is divided into three relatively equal parts. First, we focus on the politics of children’s issues. We will explore some analytical frameworks that seek to explain the policymaking process and apply them to selected children’s issues. Second, we examine evidence on the many problems that confront children and on the efficacy of proposed solutions. We will study empirical research on the causes of child poverty, child neglect, infant mortality, and other problems and on the consequences of efforts to alleviate these problems. Third, we formulate arguments in favor of particular strategies for improving children’s conditions. We will construct and evaluate normative propositions on what constitutes good public policy in this area.Course requirements include readings (books and reserve readings), plus three take-home essays. The three essays and your classroom participation will determine your final grade.

This course provides an overview of the major debates concerning women and politics. We begin by examining the historical evolution of women’s participation in American politics from the fight for suffrage through the modern feminist movement. In the next section of the class, we analyze the experience of women as voters, candidates, and officeholders. This part of the course deals with such questions as: What is the gender gap? Are voters biased against female candidates? Do female politicians have different issue priorities than male politicians? The course concludes by analyzing the impact of specific public policies on women. The policy areas we investigate include abortion, child care, education, and employment issues.

This course explores the relationship between democracy and education by examining four questions: How should our educational system advance the interests and activities of democratic politics? In what ways do schools advance or inhibit the civic engagement of youth? Should we conceive of democratic politics as educative? What does a democratic education look like? We will explore these questions by reading examine normative and and empirical work that explores the interrelationship between political action and knowledge. In part, the class will model democratic education by entrusting students with the task of developing and leading class discussions based on the week’s readings, as well as collectively determining the nature of the final assessment. This course will have a Community Based Learning component. For Education, Inquiry and Justice minors who wish to use this course to satisfy the Praxis II requirement, the CBL component is mandatory. For non-EDIJ students the CBL component is optional, although encouraged. Although plans are not yet finalized, the mandatory CBL component for EDIJ minors will involve curriculum development for civic engagement workshops with the After School Kids program (ASK) at Georgetown. In addition to short papers, reactions to readings and presentations, the course will culminate in a major project to be determined by students.

This course considers the social and political consequences of the famous case In re Neagle.

This seminar, conducted in memory of Georgetown Professor Walter Giles, examines the process of constitutional advocacy and judicial decision making in constitutional disputes, by examining six contemporary controversies in American law. Students will study the state of constitutional law in areas such as privacy, equal protection, freedom of speech, and the reach of Presidential powers. Students will explore these topics through a mix of reading briefs filed in important court cases, studying leading judicial opinions, and hearing from leading lawyers involved in these issues. Students will be assigned course sessions where they will be expected to present their arguments on specific topics and where they will have to writing litigation-style materials related to their arguments; throughout the semester, students will be expected to engage in class discussions regarding the six controversies that the seminar considers. In lieu of a final exam, students will write a paper examining in depth their views on the appropriate judicial resolution of one of the controversies studied in the course.

This course explores how the Bill of Rights has shaped U.S. criminal procedure law.

The seminar will provide a general introduction to the organization of the American legal system. We will spend the first five weeks discussing the distinctive features of our legal system: the federal structure of the court system, the difference between statutory and court-made law, different substantive areas of the law, and the broad contours of the process by which courts decide legal disputes. We will examine what scholars refer to as the sociology of the legal profession. We will compare the institutional settings in which lawyers practice law, and we will study the complexities that are introduced into the practice of law by two external factors: the lawyer's ethical obligations, and the economics of practicing law. We will read one book (A Civil Action) that provides a panoramic view of a real lawsuit and the decisions--tactical, ethical, and practical--lawyers must make during the litigation process. Lastly, we will spend the last several weeks of the seminar investigating and developing the skills lawyers must possess to be well-skilled in their calling. You will attend a portion of a trial to observe the way lawyers function in the courtroom and assess whether the "lawyering" you saw was effective. You will receive lessons in legal research and legal writing, and we'll apply those lessons to the mock-litigation of an actual case. We'll examine the education and training future lawyers receive in law school. We'll discuss contemporary criticisms of the legal profession and its role in society. And finally, we'll take a look at how mainstream society obtains much of its information about lawyers through the writings of popular fiction. [American Government]

This course considers the constitutional requirements surrounding questions like: why we bring issues to court, what we need to initiate a court case, and which cases we adjudicate where.

Campaigns and elections are the cornerstones of our democracy. Formally, they are the way we select our elected officials; informally they tell us a lot about the American ethos, the preferences of particular demographics, and the future direction of our country. This year’s elections will be no different. This class will examine American campaigns and elections through three lenses: the candidates and voters that participate in them, the consultants that conduct them, and the political scientists that study them. Special emphasis will be placed on the 2016 elections, particularly how it compares to previous campaigns and fits into the canonical political science theories that attempt to explain them.

This course consider the question - how can Americans overcome political polarization?

This seminar is designed as a joint exploration of the comparative politics of climate change and its consequences, focusing on four leading countries.

This course will study how different countries seek to protect the weak and vulnerable in society: the young, the aged, the unemployed, and the ill. We will examine both welfare state policies (pensions, health care, and education) and targeted programs at poverty alleviation, and seek to understand their successes and shortcomings. We will give particular attention to the political dynamics that allow for certain programs to emerge and work in some settings but be unthinkable or unsuccessful in other settings. We will study how social actors – including labor unions, employers, bureaucracies, and elected officials – can have competing interests in the design, finance, and reform of social policies, as well as examine how policies can “create politics” by investing these social groups with incentives to foment or block change. Regionally, we will focus first on Europe and the US, which were the earliest regions to develop welfare state policies, and then we will study the developing world, including Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Gulf States. These latter regions have presented remarkable innovation in social programs in recent decades.

This course is a follow-on course to GOVT 3243 and will cover the world's top five emitters.

This course introduces students to key concepts in mediation.

This class will compare the 2022 and 2026 World Cup events in Qatar and the Americas and examine the role of soccer in the host countries’ societies (for the 2026 World Cup, the focus will be on the United States).

This course considers the relationship between culture and democratic government.

A reading- and writing-intensive seminar examining the form, style, and arguments of classic essays on political life from the eighteenth century to the present day. By the end of the course, students will have read some of the most influential and artful essays on politics ever written (in English) and will have gained knowledge of the form, sources, and rhetorical styles of such authors as Thomas Paine, Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, and Joan Didion. Students should have an interest in the intersection of the social sciences and the humanities, and should be prepared for serious engagement with challenging texts. Students in this course have gone on to careers in journalism, policy analysis, and related fields. A key component of a successful seminar is the willingness of students to engage with the assignments and to bring their own well-informed thoughts and points of view to the group discussion. Multiple short writing assignments will be due throughout the semester.

This course considers the impact of ideologies of White Supremacy on the Field of International Relations.

This course offers an overview of the European integration process, encompassing its past circumstances, present features and future developments.

This course will analyze empire, warfare, and their different typologies.

This course offers an overview of the politics and policies of economic governance in the European Union.

This course examines revolutions, resistance movements, and social movements in the U.S. and abroad.

This course will focus on interest groups and social movements in politics, concentrating primarily but not exclusively on the U.S. We will explore how interest groups and movements are born, how they are governed and financed, how interest groups recruit and influence members, and how groups influence their members. We will also study what they do to influence public policy – including working in campaigns and lobbying.

This class will focus on the specifics of economic growth

This seminar offers an in-depth, comparative analysis of young people’s relationship with politics across different democracies.

Since September 11, 2001, this country has been engaged in a war on terrorism at home and abroad. This class will examine both the constitutional powers and limitations on the President in times of war but there will be a particular emphasis on issues which have come to prominence since 9/11. Thus, this class will analyze topics such as the detention of enemy combatants, the power of the President to authorize wiretapping of phone calls, and the use of military tribunals--all with an eye on the grants and limitations on power contained in the Constitution and statutes such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al Qaeda. [American Government]

This course will survey the science, economics, and politics of Global Heating.

This course will provide a conceptually and empirically challenging overview of key challenges in the relationship between the developing states of the "South" and the developed capitalist states of the "North." Themes will include economic dependency and market change, transitions in divided societies, the dynamics of hybrid regimes and the clash of identity politics in age of globalization. Readings cover the globe: East and Southeast Asia, South America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Energy in the globalized environment is a new department seminar in which students and faculty will analyze the multiple challenges of operating in an increasingly globalized and integrated economy, using energy as a source of case studies and major themes. The course will cover the history of globalization, its pathologies, its vulnerabilities, and its possible future, all through the lens of energy.

This seminar will examine the processes of social, economic and political change under way in Cuba and the prospects for democratization. The seminar will review the historical background of Cuban nation-state formation as well as the nature of the current regime and the dimensions of the crises it confronts. We shall endeavor to compare the prospects for democratization in Cuba with the experience of other countries and regimes in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Asia. Participants in the seminar are expected to have some familiarity with Latin American politics and/or the literature on democratization. This course counts toward the Comparative Government distribution requirement. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 308 Dept Sem: Cuba Regm Chng Comp Pr in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This course will consider how Russia perceives the issue of climate change, and how it is preparing for it?.

This course will consider the political implications of Taiwan in the current moment.

This course is the International Field Study for GOVT 3448 - The Politics of Taiwan

This course explores the contours, causes, and consequences of the increasing importance of constitutions and courts in some of the world’s new democracies. It introduces students to the main concepts used to describe, theories developed to explain, and contemporary debates about, how politics shape constitutions and courts, and how constitutions and courts shape politics. The course is divided into three parts. In the first part, we consider the concepts, debates, issues, and institutions that form the basis of the comparative study of constitutions and courts, for instance, judicial review, judicial power, and judicial independence. In the second part of the course, we examine a set of theoretical questions that lie at the heart of the comparative study of constitutions and courts: what drives constitutional birth, death, and content; why elected leaders delegate power to courts; why people litigate to resolve political conflicts; why courts rule as they do; and why elected leaders obey (or ignore) judicial rulings. The last part of the course explores the roles courts may play in three critical domains – with regard to transitional justice, rights protection, and economic development – and considers constitutions and courts in four country cases: Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, and South Africa.

Diaspora politics and nationalism will be an exciting class about the shifting nature of boundaries loyalty and citizenship in our time. It will deal with the structure of states and the identity of peoples from a variety of perspectives; historical, sociological, legal and of course political. We will probe relations of states and ethnicity, evaluate kinship ties across frontier and examine how people inside the states relates to kin in other countries in economic, cultural, and political ways. We will underscore difference in approaches to "host" and "home" countries in the West the Islamic world, and in Asia. We will see how politics is mobilizing people around "homelands" even when people are far removed, and when they are in the "near-abroad".

This course studies the interplay between state power and economic development in Southeast Asia.

This course will consider the Arab revolts in historical comparative perspective.

In July 2009, the arrest of dozens of New Jersey political figures accused of rigging real estate transactions prompted The New York Times to discuss the state’s persistent “culture of corruption.” The phrase has been employed to describe a quite diverse range of countries and cultures. This course will examine corruption in cross-cultural perspective, asking why it is so often attributed to “culture” and exploring alternative explanations. Specific cases will include the USSR, Nigeria, New Jersey, and the U.S. Congress. In addition, each student will write a case study of corruption in a “culture” of his/her choosing.

This course provides students with an in-depth knowledge of China's domestic politics. The topics covered include China's modern political history (1949-present) and major themes in Chinese and comparative politics: political ideology, state-building, nationalism, political parties, bureaucratic politics, political economy, social policy, contentious politics, civil society, media politics, environmental politics, and China’s growing political influence on its own geographic periphery and the larger world. Although the focus of this course is on domestic politics, there will be some discussion of how international factors have affected China's political development and of how China compares with other countries.

This course explores the interaction of religion and politics in majority Muslim countries. From this course, students will attain a general understanding of this interaction as well as relatively specialized knowledge about various aspects of the topic. The course provides knowledge about Islam, political Islam (the politicization of Islam by Islamist movements and groups, activists, and intellectuals) and democracy and democratization in countries with strong Islamist social movements and political parties. Our perspective will be historical, doctrinal, ideological, and based in contemporary political analysis. The first half of the course provides historical context for the case studies we will compare and contrast in the second half of the course.

2.3 million Americans currently reside in jails and prisons, often under conditions of severe overcrowding, race-based segregation, and horrific physical and sexual violence. They are granted few (if any) educational opportunities or job training, in stark contrast to many European countries, which operate extensive rehabilitation programs that prepare inmates for their eventual release and reintegration into society. Yet even though prisoners and former prisoners (not to mention their family members) constitute a substantial portion of the American population, they are generally a powerless and forgotten group of people, with few rights or opportunities. Surprisingly, very little is known or taught about prisons and punishment—in the United States or elsewhere. This course will explore these issues in a comparative perspective. It will seek to answer the following questions: Why does the U.S. maintain an incarceration rate that is seven times higher than other democracies, even though Americans are no more likely to be the victims of crimes than are people in other societies? Why is the U.S. one of the few democratic countries to sanction the death penalty? In other words, why is the criminal justice system in this country so much more punitive than in comparable countries? The Fall 2011 version of this class will be a lecture course, but it will also involve several different formats, including smaller group discussions of certain readings, the viewing of several excellent movies and documentaries that relate to prisons and punishment, and a class “field trip” to an actual prison. Texts & Readings Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the USA (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2009) Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010) Amy Bach, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009) Joseph T. Hallinan, Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation (New York: Random House, 2001) David M. Oshinsky, Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice (New York: Free Press, 1997) Assignments & Expectations of Students Students will take a midterm and a final exam, as well as write several short papers. What Students Should Know Note that the format for the Fall 2011 version of this course will be different from the Spring 2011 course, which was a Departmental Seminar. Fall 2011 will be a larger lecture course, but it will still include many of the same features from the seminar (occasional smaller group discussions, some films and documentaries, and a prison visit). The attached syllabus if from the Spring 2011 version, as the Fall 2011 syllabus will not be finalized until the summer.

This seminar is designed to assist senior candidates for the Certificate in Asian Studies with the research and writing of the Asian Studies Certificate Research Paper. Participants in the seminar are required to attend weekly meetings and undertake formal writing exercises aimed at production of the Research Paper. Grades are based on participation in the seminar and the quality of the final paper.

How does globalization impact redistribution policies? In turn, how does redistribution affect global market expansion? Can markets coexist with strong social policies? What are the types of redistribution strategies that governments can or should pursue concomitant with economic liberalization, and why? This course explores these questions by analyzing the impacts of globalization upon the welfare of people in both developed and developing countries, but with particular emphasis on the latter. The extent of government responsibility to protect and promote the welfare of citizens under conditions of globalization has been at the center of international political economy and comparative politics debates in the last three decades. This course will examine the impact of such changes in the context of labor, education and health, and social security policy. We will study existing models, explore recent challenges and predict sustainable approaches for the future.

The course, conducted as a seminar and mainly on the basis of readings of contemporary documents, will focus on political, diplomatic and military aspects of the first Arab-Israeli war, of 1948. We will look at the United Nations partition resolution of 29 November 1947 and on the diplomatic-political struggle that preceded it. We will then look at the war's two halves - the civil was between the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine between November 1947 and May 1948, and at the war between the newborn Sate of Israel and the surrounding Arab states that followed, during May 1948-July 1949. We will look at the international context of the war (Cold War, decolonization) and at the policies of the Great Power players - Britain, the United States and the USSR, and we will devote time to the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem. Lastly, we will look at the war's consequences.

This course will take an in-depth look at the structure and performance of international organizations.

This class studies the sources and nature of grand strategy, which comprises a state’s deliberate effort to harness political, military, diplomatic, and economic tools to advance its national interest.

This course will consider the role that power politics plays in the world of international affairs.

This course is concerned with selected problems and puzzles of civil-military relations. What is the proper relationship between the state, the soldier and society in a modern state? Why do armed soldiers obey unarmed civilian leaders? How does military professionalism shape military effectiveness? Why are some countries prone to coups? How do new democracies exert control over authoritarian militaries? How do colonial legacies shape military recruitment and composition? What explains military repression and defection during mass protests? We will examine these questions in different countries and regions across varied political contexts—from consolidated democratic regimes to transitional democracies and authoritarian regimes— such as the U.S., China, Latin America, and the Middle East.

This course examines the origins, structure and political significance of the United Stations.

Course Goals & Description In the last millennium Western Europe has undergone a radical transformation that encompassed almost all aspects of human life, from economy to society, from religion to politics. This transformation is often called 'Modernization.' Political Development refers to a sub-process of Modernization, the main component of which was the transformation of the state from feudal state to modern state. This transformation is called state building. This course addresses the following question: what factors had driven state building and what did it entail in the case of Western Europe? The course will also look at the problems and challenges of state building in non-Western European contexts, such as Russia, Japan and Sub-Saharan Africa. This course addresses the following questions: how did Japan succeed in state building? What challenges did Russia face in state building? And why did state building in Sub-Saharan Africa prove to be extremely demanding? Texts & Readings Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, Blackwell Georgi Derluguian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus, Chicago Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchman, Stanford. Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds, Princeton. Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa, Princeton Robert Bates, When Things Fell Apart, Cambridge William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, Lynne Rienner Assignments & Expectations of Students Students’ final grade will depend on the following: Class Participation: 15% Critical Commentaries (four in total) on the books: 40% Final Research Paper 45%

Authors writing in the Science Fiction/Speculative Fiction (SF) genre have long explored political themes— such as the rise and decline of empires, the impact of technological change on individual liberty, the nature of revolutionary struggles, the workings of totalitarianism, and the impact of socio-political collapse on humankind. This seminar approaches SF as social-scientific and social-theoretic text. Subjects include the politics of contact, alterity, identity, games, and warfare. Readings include SF novels, as well as scholarly texts on politics and social science. Students are also expected to watch and discuss a limited number of films and videos. This is not a literature course. We do not explore (much) the emergence of SF, its conventions, or its history; we do not read literary criticism of SF or cognate genres. Instead, we approach SF as many of its authors intend: as an opportunity for cognitive estrangement and a landscape of the imaginary that allows us to contemplate important political concerns.

This course will consider the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

A series of economic, social, and political crises have put tremendous stress on the European Union. Will it muddle through, transform, or dissolve? We will draw on historical examples, viewing the EU through the lens of comparative political development, to better understand its past and future. As a "Department Seminar," this course satisfies the integrated writing requirement for the Government major. It also will be of interest to SFS/IPOL, SFS/IPEC, SFS/CULP and SFS/RCST majors

This course examines Chinese foreign policy.

This seminar provides a broad survey of the theoretical and empirical literature on terrorism and insurgency. In the first half of the course, students examine the nature of state power, the causes of terrorism and insurgency, and the strategies of terrorism and insurgency designed to alter or challenge state behavior. In the second half of the course, students will examine counter-insurgency and -terror strategies. Students will conclude the course with in-depth group presentations of specific organizations and the potential ways to defeat them.

This course uses a broad definition of government and focuses on the interaction of social forces, political parties, and institutions in shaping contemporary Italian society. When elected into power in May 2001 with the centre-right coalition of the Casa delle Libertà Mr. Silvio Berlusconi, announced an ambitious programme aiming at radically changing the outlook of Italian society and politics, at reforming the welfare state, at re-organizing public administration and at liberalizing economy. Four years later, many promises still remain to be realized. This is certainly in part due to ad adverse economic situation and to strong opposition from the trade unions and other non-governmental organisations. However, Berlusconi’s controversial position as a media mogul and head of the government have not made things easier. The defeat in the recent regional elections has deepened the internal divisions of the centre-right. Paradoxically, the victory in the elections has helped the centre-left to become more united. The outcome of the elections planned for spring 2006 remains therefore highly uncertain. The aim of this course - designed for anyone curious about contemporary Italy - is to provide students with a basic knowledge of the main characteristics of contemporary Italian society and of Italian politics. This course counts toward the International Relations distribution requirement.

This course will investigate the politics surrounding the European Union.

This course considers international relations through a psychological lens.

This course will investigate the internal dynamics of state governments, and their broad levers of politics and power. This will include examinations of how state-level institutions, processes, and policymaking can have significant implications for representation and behavior; as well as the role states play in national policy-setting and dialogue.

This seminar will explore historical and recent developments in peacekeeping, focusing primarily on UN peacekeeping, but also looking at NATO and other regional organizations. We will begin by examining the origins of peacekeeping and the issues surrounding multilateral intervention in civil wars. We will survey contrasting cases of success and failure in multidimensional peacekeeping in civil wars, in an effort to determine which factors were the most important determinants of the outcomes of the operations. We will then explore contemporary U.S. interest in peacekeeping, and regional peacekeeping efforts. Finally, we will examine current debates in peacekeeping including whether deadly force should be used, and recent attempts to reform and improve the UN's capacity to keep the peace. This course counts toward the International Relations distribution requirement.

This course focuses on the politics that bring about reconstruction in impoverished, often conflict-ridden states. Why do some governments bring about recovery in their states while others are unable to turn around the collapse? We will study models of reconstruction, such as autonomous recovery, shared sovereignty, and UN Transitional Administrations. We will evaluate the logic and evidence supporting these models by analyzing cases of state-building success and failure.

This course introduces students to a variety of theoretical perspectives and empirical processes linking gender to the dynamics of security and armed conflict, both at the domestic and international levels. After reviewing historical connections between gender, war and peace, it focuses on a comparative analysis of gender integration in the armed forces of western democracies. Major topics to be discussed are: the military as a gendered organization; gender equality, citizenship and military participation; women in combat; sexuality, sexual orientation and the military; masculinity and military culture; patterns and policies of gender integration. A final block is then devoted to analyzing the implications and challenges of a new gender regime in international security which has been developing since the approval of UNSC Resolution 1325 in 2000. This includes examining and discussing issues such as the participation of women in international operations; gender, crisis management and the security sector reform; and gender-based violence in armed conflicts.

This seminar is designed to prepare you to write a senior honors thesis in International Politics (IPOL). Writing a thesis will deepen your knowledge and stretch your analytic skills in major ways. Yet doing this successfully requires hard work and an ability to break a large task into a series of manageable steps. The seminar’s purpose is to help you navigate these steps. By the end of the semester, you should have (1) a well-defined thesis question on an important topic, (2) a clear plan for answering that question, (3) a good idea about how you will ground your question, arguments, and evidence in the appropriate substantive and theoretical literature of international politics, and (4) the first 15-20 pages of the thesis together with the overall outline and bibliography. For detailed information on SFS International Politics Honors Thesis requirements, see: http://www3.georgetown.edu/sfs/bsfs/majors/ipol/honors/research.html We begin the semester by examining how scholars choose research questions, evaluate possible answers, and select research strategies. Your initial task is to frame an important yet manageable question. Above all, the question must be one that interests you. At the same time, it must be one you can answer convincingly with the resources you have available. The more precisely you pose your question and the clearer your plan for answering it, the better the thesis will be (and the easier to write). We will also spend several sessions examining broad gauged thinking about the disciplines and relationships among international politics, political science, and international history. Here, our topic is how a number of leading IPOL scholars assess their subject, its boundaries, and the most important areas of inquiry. This part of the seminar is not designed as a mini-course in IR theory, but it does aim to stimulate your ideas, challenge you intellectually in laying the groundwork for your senior thesis, and help you in situating your research question in some larger conceptual or empirical body of work. In addition to your active participation in the above discussions, each of you will present in seminar first an early abstract of your thesis, then a revised and enlarged abstract, and finally the first part of the thesis itself. By discussing your ideas and those of your fellow honors seniors in seminar, you are likely to gain insights that will help you to develop a more coherent thesis question and focus your own writing.

Most introductory courses on the international relations courses spend the bulk of their time looking at questions of why. For example, they examine why wars happen, why do states form international institutions and why do states trade with one another. This course, however, builds on this material, but concerns itself primarily with a somewhat different set of questions—namely questions of how. Specifically, this course seeks answer a basic question: how do states (and primarily the United States) control, develop and use force to accomplish their national objectives? The course is divided into four sections. First, it will introduce the basic building blocks in the course, namely war, strategy and military power. Second, it will then look at the primary actor in this course—the military—and delve into a series of questions, ranging from how the military interacts with civilians to how the military learns (or does not learn). Third, the course will explore how states can use different types of force and the threats of force—from airpower to economic coercion—to accomplish their national objectives. Finally, the course concludes by looking at the future of war and strategy in the twenty-first century.

This course covers the interwar history of Palestine from the Balfour Declaration to the creation of Israel

Dept. Seminar: Problems and Processes in US Foreign PolicyThis course introduces students to US foreign policy problems and processes. It explores how the process of policymaking affects policy outcomes and emphasizes the importance of analytical writing in a policy environment. Students examine the roles of key institutions in the foreign policy process including the Presidency and executive branch agencies, the Congress, the media, and the public and interest groups. They develop strategies to address contemporary foreign policy problems and generate briefing folders for relevant policymakers. This course is a Department Seminar and satisfies the integrated writing requirement for the Government major.

This course explores the dynamic forces driving contemporary relationships between the United States and Africa.

This course evaluates the prevalence of widespread poverty in the global economy and uses tools from political economy to explore why it continues to plague so many countries throughout the world. The emphasis is on the kinds of questions scholars and practitioners ask about poverty and development and how they have attempted to answer them. Issues of poverty are analyzed as both internal and external political, economic, and social phenomena. The readings cover many of the classic texts in the field, policy- related issues, debates on North-South relations, and case material on Latin America, Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. Students will be encouraged to think critically about issues of poverty and evaluate the merits of different strategies intended to alleviate it.

This seminar will explore the relationship between atrocities and law at the international level, with an emphasis on the historical, theoretical, and political dimensions of international justice.

This lecture course will cover Israeli-Arab relations during the four decades between Israel's establishment in 1948 and the start of the First Intifada--the Palestinian uprising against Israel--and Israeli rule in the occupied territories in December 1987. The course will look at the consequences of the 1948 War; the build-up to, and course of, the Sinai/Suez War of 1956, in which Israel, Britain, and France attacked Egypt; the 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel fought and defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan (particular attention will be paid to the causes and consequences of the war); the 1973 War, in which Egypt and Syria caught Israel napping and attacked in Sinai and the Golan Heights; and the 1982 War, in which Israel invaded southern Lebanon in order to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization. The course will deal in depth with the Israeli-Egyptian peace process, which resulted in the peace treaty of 1979, and with Israeli-Palestinian relations and the development of the PLO, culminating in the First Intifada.

This course will address the dramatic changes that have taken place over the past two decades in the region of East Central Europe. The nations of Eastern Europe have moved from relative political and economic conformity under Soviet domination to diversity and independence. We will study the political, social, economic, and security changes in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and the former German Democratic Republic. Special attention will be given to the challenge of simultaneous transitions to the market and democracy. Other topics include: the legacies of communism, nationalism, development of a party system, and European integration. Students will be expected to write two essays, take midterm and final examinations, and participate in classroom debates and discussions.

*This course will be taught by Manuel Pinho in Fall 2016.* The course will cover in the first 10 classes the world energy balance, the 3 main game changers (China, energy security and climate change) and the most important energy challenges from the point of view of the • US (shale gas and tight oil revolution), • China (external dependence, pollution), • Europe (20/20/20 strategy, single market, competitiveness), • Russia (investment, strategic cooperation with China), and • Developing countries (energy access for all). The remaining 3 classes will cover 6 special topics: • Energy Darwinism, The evolution of the energy industry (Citibank) • How China´s resource quest is changing the world (E. Economy and M. Levi) • Fueling the future with natural gas (HIS CERA report on natural gas in the US) • Energy economics developments in Europe (European Commission) • Risky business: The economic risks of climate change in the US (Bloomberg- Paulsen report) • Outlook for Russian energy (International Energy Agency) The course includes Australia 2050, a web based game to create energy sustainability scenarios for Australia in 2050. Sample questions to which students will be able to provide a quantitative answer by the end of the course: i) world energy balance by demand and supply sources; ii) shale gas and tight oil reserves; iii) impact on world oil reserves of an improvement through technological progress of the rate of recovery; iv) energy demand and CO2 emissions in different GDP growth and carbon intensity for China; v) estimate of the levelized cost of electricity production in several regions of the world under different assumptions for fuel and CO2 prices.

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This seminar will explore the global environment and world politics. It will introduce students to debates regarding environmental cooperation and management; the interplay of science, politics, uncertainty and risk; market and political failures and potential solutions for managing environmental issues. Students will use insights from these debates to evaluate the contemporary issues including sustainable development, energy, and climate change. Books include: Elizabeth DeSombre, The Global Environment and World Politics, 2nd edition, Continuum Press, 2007; J. Samuel Barkin and George Shambaugh, Anarchy and the Environment, SUNY Press, 1999; Ken Conca and Geoffrey Dabelko, Green Planet Blues, 5th edition, Westview Press, 2015.

This course examines contemporary debates in international security. Each week we will focus on one main debate. The readings, which have been chosen to reflect competing points of view, will serve as a springboard for class discussions. The course will examine the conceptual issues that lie behind contemporary debates as well as the policy implications of these debates.

NOTE: For senior IPOL Honors students only. The seminar is designed to prepare you to write a senior honors thesis in International Politics (IPOL). Writing a thesis will deepen your knowledge and stretch your analytic skills in major ways. Doing this successfully requires hard work and an ability to break a large task into a series of manageable steps. The seminar’s purpose is to help you navigate these steps. By the end of the semester, you should have (1) a well-defined thesis question on an important topic, (2) a clear plan for answering that question, (3) a bibliography of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature, (4) an understanding of the key theories and alternative hypotheses relevant to your research question, and (5) the first 20-plus pages of the thesis together with the overall outline and bibliography.

Energy in the globalized environment is a new department seminar in which students and faculty will analyze the multiple challenges of operating in an increasingly globalized and integrated economy, using energy as a source of case studies and major themes. The course will cover the history of globalization, its pathologies, its vulnerabilities, and its possible future, all through the lens of energy.

This course will examine the history of global finance through the lens of international and domestic political institutions.

This course will provide students with a broad understanding of the policies aimed at dealing with socioeconomic inequality in democratic systems. The first part of the course will consider the foundations of the equality principle and its proclamation in the modern state, using foundational documents from the U.S. and European experiences. The second phase of the course will examine the varieties of equality and inequality, including such concepts as the "equality of opportunity" and anti-discrimination laws and affirmative action. In this context we will also analyze the European "welfare state" model, describing its origin and discussing its future, as well as the traditional struggle between individual liberty and the common good. The final section of the course will introduce some case studies from the equality policies and their legal framework in both Europe and Brazil. This course is taught by the Visiting FLAD Professor, a program that brings a leading Portuguese thinker and policymaker to Georgetown each year.

This Departmental Seminar is designed for Government majors and SFS students in International Politics, as well as others with interest in the subject. We will examine interactions with the major European powers, relationships with the European Union and NATO, economic issues, disputes about globalization and “global governance,” relations with emerging regional powers, migration and cultural controversies, differences over out-of-area issues including the Middle East, anti-Americanism, America’s ability to lead, and the future of the transatlantic region. By the end of the semester, you should have a broad grasp not only of the U.S.-European dynamic in its multiple dimensions, but of the wider global context involving the major western countries and emerging regional powers.

Authors writing in the Science Fiction/Speculative Fiction (SF) genre have long explored political themes— such as the rise and decline of empires, the impact of technological change on individual liberty, the nature of revolutionary struggles, the workings of totalitarianism, and the impact of socio-political collapse on humankind. This seminar approaches SF as social-scientific and social-theoretic text. Subjects include the politics of contact, alterity, identity, games, and warfare. Readings include SF novels, as well as scholarly texts on politics and social science. Students are also expected to watch and discuss a limited number of films and videos. This is not a literature course. We do not explore (much) the emergence of SF, its conventions, or its history; we do not read literary criticism of SF or cognate genres. Instead, we approach SF as many of its authors intend: as an opportunity for cognitive estrangement and a landscape of the imaginary that allows us to contemplate important political concerns.

This course focuses on understanding the institutions, actors, and politics behind the making of American foreign policy. After providing several theoretical approaches to this subject, the course examines in turn the foreign policy roles of the Presidency, the NSC, the State and Defense Departments, the Congress, the international economics agencies, public opinion, and the media. The second half of the course is devoted to student presentations of group memos on contemporary issues in the foreign policy process. [International Relations]

This course examines the concept of Empire through considering both fact and presentation in science fiction.

Are human rights universal or are they a Western product? Does the United Declaration of Human Rights represent a universal consensus among cultures or an imposition by the West on the rest of the world? What are the origins of the idea of human rights? Can human rights, or similar ideas, be found in all traditions of thought? In this course, students study the philosophical conception of human rights and the cultural debates surrounding it. They consider challenges leveled against the declared universalism of human rights. They assess these challenges from the perspective of two non-western traditions: Islam and Confucianism.

The primary goal of this course is to examine the principles of classical political philosophy which influenced the political thought of the American Founders. These influences were twofold: first, there is a direct line of development from antiquity to the eighteenth century regarding the best form of political organization; second, the belief of classical thinkers that the practice of the virtues was a necessary prerequisite for good political leadership figured prominently in the political views of the Founders. There will be a two-part structure to the course: (1) a review of classical political thought; (2) an examination of the writings of the Founders. After a brief survey of ancient politics and the political thought of Plato and Aristotle, the first part of the course will be devoted to a reading of Polybius and Cicero, thinkers who are the bridge between the thought of the fourth-century Greeks and the Founders. The second part of the course will concentrate on the writings of the Founders to examine how they understood and incorporated ancient thought into their own moral and political ideas. It is to be hoped that this examination will lead to view the Founders as political thinkers and leaders who did not attempt to found a government on radical principles and out of motives of self-interest, but rather as classically educated individuals who were intellectually formed by a tradition of political and moral thought stretching back to antiquity. Finally, by investigating the influence of classical political philosophy on the Founders, a standard may be established from which we may gauge the deviations encountered in contemporary politics and political leaders.

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This course examines the shared assumptions and recurrent tensions that mark liberal theory, from its “pre-history” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through its emergence and rise in the nineteenth, and its transformations in the twentieth; and explores some major challenges to liberalism from its critics.

This course will consider Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and seek to begin to comprehend the way in which he thought through democracy and its problems.

This course introduces the concepts and ideologies essential to understanding political discourse and political theory, explores the meanings of those ideologies, and examines the roles each plays in political life.

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Over the past decades an increasing number of developing countries have made transitions to democracy. But at the same time, these countries ha ve relatively large portions of their populations under poverty. An obvious tension emerges: citizens with political rights make demands about their lack of social rights. How do the poor express their demands? Who represents them under democracy? How do incumbent governments reply to these demands? In this seminar course we will explore answers to these questions as we seek to analyze who represents the poor in developing democratic countries and how governments reply to their demands to retain power. We will focus on social policy as a fundamental strategy to gather the support of the poor under democracy. We will study formal and legal institutions, such as Conditional Cash Transfers, as well as informal institutions, such as patronage and clientelism. Most, but not all, of the literature will focus on Latin America. The course will be taught by Fr. Rodrigo Zarazaga, the Visiting Jesuit Scholar at Georgetown and a Director and Professor of Politics at CIAS, the School for Political Leadership in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Max Weber (1864-1920) is commonly recognized as one of the pioneers in the development of modern social science. Trained as a lawyer and economic historian, he became one of the seminal figures in the development of the discipline we now know as sociology. But he was a scholar with wide-ranging interests, who did work of lasting significance on a whole series of subjects, ranging from the methodology of the social sciences to the sociology of religion. Both as a scholar and a citizen Weber was keenly interested in politics, and he wrote extensively on subjects that are of interest to political science and even political philosophy. This course is designed as an opportunity for students to acquaint themselves in some depth with: 1) the writings of Weber himself on certain key themes that are of particular interest to students of politics; 2) the scholarly debates about his treatment of those themes; and 3) the relevant secondary literature. The themes to be emphasized are: 1) what it means to be modern; 2) the probable fate of modern societies; 3) the religious roots of cultural differences; 4) the distinctiveness of the West; 5) the cultural consequences of market economies; 6) the peculiar dynamics of modern politics; and 7) political ethics. The course will be run as a seminar. All students enrolled in the course will be expected to write three papers: two short ones--one on a theme in the writings of Weber himself and another on a theme drawn from the secondary literature--as well as a more substantial research paper, which is due at the end of the term. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 492 Dept Sem: Max Weber in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

From the troubled Mexican-American frontier to endangered Patagonia, contemporary Latin America is a region rich in both possibilities and challenges. Since independence, it has suffered repeatedly from dictatorships, economic crises, and outbreaks of civil strife. Its many nations have embarked upon a wide variety of political projects aimed at securing democracy and development. They have been tempted by eloquent caudillos and repressed by military juntas, and witnessed economic policies ranging from laissez-faire to import-substitution industrialization. The final decades of the 20th century brought new hopes for many in the region. Military dictatorships, once the dominant form of government, effectively disappeared, and Latin America became an overwhelmingly democratic region for the first time in its history. Market reforms promised to give new dynamism to stagnant economies, generating enough wealth to break the cycles of poverty and crisis. However, secure prosperity remains elusive, and a variety of challenges continue to endanger fragile political gains. Poverty and inequality persist despite economic growth, and the region still wrestles with the riddle of equitable and sustainable development. Corruption and rising crime rates have taken a toll on public morale. And while many marginalized groups have begun to find their political voice and to challenge institutions that reproduce patterns of discrimination and oppression, they have struggled to establish new avenues for participation and representation. This course is an introduction to the politics of Latin America. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the broad social, cultural, economic, and institutional trends that have shaped political events in the region. Students will engage with critical debates about democracy and development, carefully evaluating the costs and benefits of alternative institutions and policies. In addition, they will be encouraged to analyze specific countries, organizations, and conflicts both in class and in written assignments.

The novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky once remarked that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” What then could we say of mass imprisonment in the United States, a nation with five percent of the world’s population yet twenty-five percent of its prisoners? How should we understand American democracy if one in twenty-three adults are under some form of state supervision, if one in ten children have had a parent incarcerated, or if one in three black men born today will enter prison at some point? In this seminar we will study the ethical and political dimensions of public policy by focusing on the ideas, institutions and history of American incarceration. Students can expect to read broadly from political science and theory, philosophy, history, sociology, and from the testimonies of those living within, working for, or acting against the carceral state. Our goal for the course will be to develop critical skills in analyzing the policies of incarceration according to the concepts of justice we find in history, law, and society. As such, we will be less concerned with whether mass imprisonment is “just” or “unjust” but how it determines justice and what its many institutions and ideas reveal about the democracy in which we live and act. We will begin by looking at theories of freedom and punishment fundamental to the United States, before working through a series of case issues in incarceration that will take us from the city to the jail to the prison and back again. By the end of the course, we will have built through reading, writing, and discussion a set of theoretical goals for incarceration in policy and practice and a working list of ethical challenges and solutions to issues such as solitary confinement, mental health, prison labor and privatization, life sentences without parole, race and immigration, felon disenfranchisement, and so on. In the last part of our seminar, each student will pursue original research to investigate a specific concern in the ethics and public policy of incarceration.

The Giles Endowed Seminar, during the Fall Semester 2017 probes theoretical and practical relationships between so-called universal and international human rights and so-called civil liberties. Political Theorists distinguish between the two; yet, in popular parlance, we find the two concepts used interchangeably, as synonyms. This class considers the theoretical difference between the two concepts and explores implications in practice and for public policy. How ought we proceed when human rights and civil liberties conflict? Which has priority and why? For example, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution stipulates: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." If you were asked whether this implies a human right to own and gun and engage in "open carry," how would you answer? What would be the touchstones of your argument? What do you think should be the guiding theoretical relationship between a Constitution and any Civil Liberties that constitution articulates, protects, or limits? Ecclesiastes (1:9) declares there is nothing new under the sun. Are the substance of human rights and of civil liberties already known and settled. Ought they be settled? Or do we formulate new human rights and/or civil liberties as needs arise? If so, on what foundation and by what authority? We look to early Moderns (Burke and Paine) who take opposite positions on foundational questions about the human rights, civil liberties, and the nature of Constitutions. We wade into the question of whether a Constitution ought to be considered binding on its own terms as a received text or understood as a living document or even disobeyed intentionally in view of human rights (with American Professors of Constitutional Law Strauss and Seidmann). We consider whether the US Project is--and is intended to be--a system of liberties for some accomplished through "lawful" repression of some others (Coates and Butler). If such questions intrigue you, and if you want to undertake a research paper on some aspect, this may be a good seminar for you.

This is an exploratory seminar in political theory and jurisprudence. We consider the question: “What is a constitution, and how might we conceptualize it?” In considering this question, we will also consider others, both normative and empirical: What purposes should (or do) constitutions serve? How are they (or should they) be crafted, maintained, enforced or changed? How do they (or should they) incorporate cultural differences and/or protect cosmopolitan or universalist conceptions of human/individual rights? How are they to be interpreted and by whom? Of course, none of these are new questions, and the literature exploring them is large, and of variable quality. A principal focus of the course will be the contemporary American constitution, but our approach will be comparative across both time and political (national) context. We will read Aristotle and Polybius to consider both ancient Greek and Roman considerations of this important and politically contested concept. We will consider competing understandings of how constitutions ought to be crafted in the early modern period: Locke and Montesquieu; Rousseau’s Social Contract and The Government of Poland; selections from Hamilton’s and Madison’s contributions to The Federalist Papers. The second half of the course turns first to some case examples of actual constitution making and/or struggles to both re-constitute and to re-constitutionalize societies in the Middle East, such as Egypt; in Eastern Europe (Georgia) and perhaps in the larger political/economic context of the European Union (WTO). The final weeks of the course will turn then to interpretive debates on the nature and substance of the American Constitution among thinkers such as Ronald Dworkin, Antonin Scalia, Cass Sunstein and Jeremy Waldron. We will read selected books and articles and selected Supreme Court cases. Hanna Pitkin has argued: “[T]o understand what a constitution is, one must look not for some crystalline core or essence of unambiguous meaning but precisely at the ambiguities, the specific oppositions that this specific concept helps us to hold in tension.” Without making claims for either the truth or persuasiveness of this claim, it is perhaps an interesting place to begin. Requirements: submission of short reading notes (2-3 pages) or reading questions, in selected weeks in preparation for the seminar; a seminar paper due at the completion of the course. Government Honor Students Only

Since at least The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, American thinkers have written their life stories for various political purposes: to outline an ethical way of political life, to resist authority or injustice, to insist on the author’s place among the people, and so on. This course surveys those political actors who have drawn on autobiography to champion or critique American democracy. We will investigate how actors use the genre to wrestle with topics such as the relevance of morality for citizenship, whether participants should draw on experience in political debate, how democracy should respond to histories of injustice, and how citizenship should best reflect a diverse public. As a department seminar, the course will guide students through a semester-long research project in which they interpret personal narrative(s) of choice according to their political, economic, and cultural contexts. This semester we will read authors such as Benjamin Franklin, Black Hawk, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Henry David Thoreau, Booker T. Washington, Henry Adams, Emma Goldman, Whittaker Chambers, and Malcolm X, as well as engage with recent examples of personal narrative in immigration, sexual identity, and presidential politics. About the instructor: Nolan Bennett an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Government, having received his doctorate in Government from Cornell University. Prof. Bennett’s research is broadly focused on the history of American political thought and the mutual influence of democratic politics and literature in the United States and elsewhere. His research is particularly focused on the politics of autobiography, incarceration in the United States, and African American political thought.

This course serves as the "capstone" seminar for students enrolled in the Social and Political Thought program. It is open to other students, but all students enrolled in the S&P Thought program are expected to complete it successfully (usually in their senior year). It is designed to provide students with an opportunity to reflect together critically on issues in the development of the human, or "social" sciences, from a broad historical perspective. The course presupposes familiarity with at least some of the disciplines in question (anthropology, economics, psychology, political science, sociology), including the methodologies favored by practitioners. We will begin the course with a consideration of where the human sciences fit into the intellectual frameworks of antiquity and early modernity – that is to say, before they were seen as distinct and isolated spheres of study. How did Aristotle understand the study of human things in relation to other kinds of scientific inquiry? How did Bacon expect that the social sciences would fit into his broader modern scientific project? And what were some early concerns about the moral and political impact of the modern sciences? The historical consideration of the problems inherent to the study of human things will allow us to take a fresh look at the original vision of the social sciences as an arena for objective, value-free, inquiry. In the second part of the course we will revisit some of the issues that emerged in "Foundations of Social Theory," but now from a more critical perspective. What are some of the challenges that have been posed to traditional social science by historicism and postmodernism? And what new problems have been generated by scientific advancement itself – by technological advancements, for example, or advancements in genetics, or neuroscience? We will conclude the course with a consideration of the kinds of political and social structures that might be necessary in an age of increasing scientific complexity. This course is a seminar-style course, and will culminate in a research paper of 20-25 pages on a theme related to the subject-matter of the course, which is due at a date TBD at the end of the semester; or in the case of participants in the Social and Political Thought program, a "senior essay," which is to be presented to a meeting of the class involving members of the faculty of the program and then revised for submission in written form.

For over two millennia many political philosophers have argued that in order for there to be good political practice there is a need for virtuous individuals to administer the institutions of a political community. Without virtuous leaders there is a limited possibility that a political system can be stable, long-lasting, and direct its resources toward the common good of its citizens. In contrast, there are political thinkers, such as Machiavelli, who hold the view that privileging virtue over other factors can bring about the destruction of a political regime and its rulers. While a virtuous nature might be desirable, the security of a political community is best ensured when a more realistic, pragmatic, and expedient type of rule is exercised by the political elite. The central concern of this course will be on the relationship between virtue, pragmatism and expedience. The principal concept which will be examined throughout the course is grounded in the opposition between virtue and expedience. Can a political community remain secure and offer the conditions for its citizens to thrive solely by placing virtue as its highest consideration, or can exceptions be made if particular situations require non-virtuous behavior from a political community's leaders? Authors to be read will include Plato (Republic), Aristotle (Politics), Machiavelli (The Prince), and the American Founders (The Federalist). This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 355 Dept Sem: Virtue and Politics in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

The novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky once remarked that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” What then could we say of mass imprisonment in the United States, a nation with five percent of the world’s population yet twenty-five percent of its prisoners? How should we understand American democracy if one in twenty-three adults are under some form of state supervision, if one in ten children have had a parent incarcerated, or if one in three black men born today will enter prison at some point? In this seminar we will study the ethical and political dimensions of public policy by focusing on the history, institutions and ideas of American incarceration. Students can expect to read broadly from political science and theory, history, sociology, and from the testimonies of those living within, working for, or acting against the carceral state. Our goal for the course will be to develop critical skills in analyzing the policies of incarceration according to the concepts of justice we find in history, law, and society. As such, we will be less concerned with whether mass imprisonment is “just” or “unjust” but how it determines justice and what it reveals about the democracy in which we live and act. Though topics may vary, we will likely address subjects such as the historical background of incarceration, the goals and methods of the prison (e.g. rehabilitation, deterrence, capital punishment, solitary confinement), the incarcerated as citizen (e.g. disenfranchisement, reentry programs, labor, race, gender, immigration), and steps toward changing the carceral state (e.g. arguments for reform, abolition, or reparations).

In addition to being a Department Seminar in the Gov Major, this course serves as the Gateway course for the Minor/ Certificate Program in Social and Political Thought. Its central purpose is to trace the origins and development of the modern social sciences, particularly the evolution of what are now acknowledged as the disciplines of political science, economics, psychology, and sociology. Although the course is organized roughly in chronological terms, we will also be concerned with certain core themes such as the tension between individualism and community; between a fixed core of human “nature” and the historicity of manners and morals; the limits of modern scientific attempts to model and predict human conduct; the tension between the rational, irrational, and sub-rational in understanding behavior; the naturalness of political life and its relationship to the social, familial, or religious spheres; the uniqueness of capitalist society; the economic, moral, and sociological effects of the division of labor; and the locus of power in contemporary social relations. Readings to include, among others, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Sigmund Freud.

This course focuses on the writings of political theorists who wrote within and contributed to traditions of thought that originate from diverse times and places--ancient China, ancient Greece, the medieval Islamic world, early modern and modern Europe, and the modern and contemporary Middle East and South Asia, to name a few. While they wrote in diverse contexts, the thinkers we study are often in dialogue with one another. We begin the course with Plato and his medieval Muslim interlocutors, Al-Farabi and Avicenna, focusing on their discussions of how to attain knowledge of the good, a good that we--or at least some of us--must understand if we are ever to understand the good political order. In the second part of the course, we study early modern and modern European political thought, where we encounter philosophers who are more concerned with the real rather than the ideal, with individual liberty rather than the good. Finally, in the last part of the course, we read contemporary theorists of democracy and liberalism, as well as thinkers--from both within and outside of the "Western" tradition--who critique democracy and liberalism on the basis of centuries-old traditions they believe are still relevant to the modern world. These thinkers urge a renewed interest not just in compromise, but in conviction, not just in liberty, but in well-being, not just in events that occur in public fora, but in the relationships that we cultivate with others and the change and development that occur in our souls. Nura Hossainzadeh is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Government who is working on a book manuscript on Ruhollah Khomeini's political thought, Islamic political thought, and inter-cultural political theory.

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Liberalism is a theory of liberty, of possessiveness and materialism. For many classical liberals, freedom meant the 'freedom' to pursue the market, to equate one's economic self interest with individualism. But there are psychological costs to the ideology of success and possessive individualism; and it is those costs, particularly in terms of alienation, loneliness, isolation, and fear, we will explore in a literature focusing on serious omissions in the political psychology of liberalism. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 413 Dept Sem: Emo/Pay Costs/Librism in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

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The industrialized nations of the non-Communist world have long had "mixed" economies. They have had economies, that is, which have combined private enterprise with various kinds of state control and intervention, some of which has been motivated by a desire to insure that the benefits and burdens of economic activity were allocated in a manner that was regarded as just. This has led to ongoing debates about the meaning of (distributive) justice as well as the relationship between justice and other values, such as personal liberty and economic efficiency. Those debates entered a new phase with the rise of neoliberalism as a successful political force in the 1980's and the subsequent enactment of neoliberal policies in the management of the world economy by such bodies as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. For with that development came a dedicated effort to rethink (and revise) the policy compromise that had been achieved in the era after World War II--an effort which has set in motion another round of intense ideological debate about markets and justice. The purpose of this course is to examine critically the views on the relevant issues of an ideologically representative sample of influential thinkers whose ideas have figured prominently in the scholarly discussion of this matter. The figures whose views will be considered include: 1) John Maynard Keynes (British economist); 2) Friedrich von Hayek (Austrian/British economist and political theorist); 3) John Rawls (American philosopher); 4) Jürgen Habermas (German social theorist and philosopher); and 5) Michel Foucault (French philosopher and social theorist). Most of the assigned readings will be drawn from the published works of these authors, though students will be encouraged to make use of appropriate secondary literature as well.

To know justice, James Baldwin wrote, requires we listen not to the judge but the “testimony” of those “who need the law’s protection most.” What is justice, and how should we define it? This course examines key issues of political and moral justice as explored not through law or philosophy, but literature: in novels, short stories, memoirs, letters, science fiction, and so on. These works will offer students diverse arguments about justice to master and evaluate, arguments that may frame justice as a hierarchical system of governance, as utopian, as an ethical way of life, as meritocratic individualism, as a form of individual resistance or revenge, or as reconciliation. Students will engage in advanced discussion, critique, and writing on political theory that challenges participants to relate issues of justice not simply through readings but as these issues concern politics today. This semester, students will study selections that include Sophocles’ Antigone, Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s Herland, Franz Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony,” Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, Louise Erdrich’s The Round House, Alexander Berkman’s Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, and short stories by Ursula Le Guin and Philip K. Dick. About the instructor: Nolan Bennett an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Government, having received his doctorate in Government from Cornell University. Prof. Bennett’s research is broadly focused on the history of American political thought and the mutual influence of democratic politics and literature in the United States and elsewhere. His research is particularly focused on the politics of autobiography, incarceration in the United States, and African American political thought.

This course covers the complex intersection between race and education in the United States.

Overview Under the post-World War II Liberal World Order, religion and ethics were able to shape and influence the course of international affairs. Human rights, religious pluralism, and democracy all advanced. Religious groups were active in peacemaking, the settlement of refugees, relief and development work and of coalitions supporting humanitarian intervention. The U.S., Canada and the U.K. appointed ambassadors and established offices for international religious freedom. With the eclipse of the Liberal World Order, the growth of nationalism, the spread of xenophobia and the advance of “illiberal democracy,” it is growing harder to advance the international agenda of religious groups, humanitarian agencies and value-based foreign policy lobbies. The class will examine the gains made under the Liberal World Order and then inquire as to the possible pathways for religion and ethics to contribute to in today’s swirling international environment.

Since the introduction of coinage into the ancient world, money has been regarded not just as an economic tool of convenience, but also as an institution of societal value. This course explores the politics of money through a series of foundational and topical texts in the history of political thought.

This course explores the use of violence as a tool of political struggle may ever be not merely necessary, but morally praiseworthy, or even obligatory. We will examine classic theoretical arguments for the morality of violence, and study several historical cases where violence was advocated on moral grounds, including the French and Russian Revolutions, the struggle against White Supremacy in the United States both before the Civil War and during the 1960s, and struggles for emancipation from colonialist regimes following World War II. Our emphasis will be on exploring the relationship between political action and morality, drawing on both philosophical argument and history.

This departmental seminar focuses on the social and historical aspects of fascism and extremist movements from a variety of perspectives. The first half of the course will develop a conceptual and analytic understanding of fascism, primarily within the historical and empirical context of national-socialism in Germany. It considers some of the following questions: What is fascism? Under what conditions and how does it arise? What are its main tenets and principles? Who are its supporters and/or beneficiaries? How central are such concepts as modernization, totalitarianism, and anti-Semitism to our understanding of the fascist phenomenon? Was fascism unique to the 1920s and 1930s, or does it continue to adapt and exist under different conditions today? The second half of the course will explore other countries from various time periods, in order to compare and contrast different forms of fascism and quasi-fascist movements. For the pre-1945 period, one session will be devoted to Italian fascism, and another to a series of countries from both Western and Eastern Europe. For the post-war period, the course will cover contemporary right-wing extremism in Europe, white-power and black-power extremism in the United States, and religious extremism around the world. The purpose of these wider comparisons is to shed light on the question of fascism’s historical uniqueness, and to consider whether it could return once again in the future—a theme the course will consider in the final session. The class will be conducted as a seminar, with extensive student interaction and discussion. During some class sessions, we will also be viewing brief video documentaries on topics closely related to the readings, for the purpose of further stimulating the class discussion. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 322 Dept Sem: Fascism & Extrmst Mvts in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This upper-level course investigates the politics and ethics of debt.

This course considers what liberal and liberal democratic political theory look like or signify against the rhetoric and claims made during the 2024 campaign.

Machiavelli famously argued that a ruler must learn “how not to be good.” Was he right to suggest that politics and ordinary morality are conceptually distinct, or does this make him a “teacher of evil?” This course examines the ways in which political thinkers from antiquity to today have responded to Machiavelli’s challenge.

This course will consider liberalism in light of the 2024 election--looking a year later.

This course will provide students insight into the professional responsibilities and experience of legal professionals in the judiciary, federal and state government, private practice and public interest. Students will also be required to identify a relevant research area of public law and complete a long-form seminar paper on the chosen research area.

This course is the first element in the Department of Government Honors Thesis program.

This 5-credit course is intended for a small number of passionate and highly motivated students. The class will not have readings, papers, or exams. Instead, students will spend an intensive semester as investigative journalists, documentarians, and social justice activists, with the goal of creating a public documentary (in addition to a website and social media campaign) that makes the case for the innocence of a wrongfully convicted person who is currently languishing in prison. Students will reinvestigate the original crime and conviction, and their task will be to portray the main issues, challenges, injustices, and human stories involved in each case.

The course is co-taught by Professor Marc Howard and his childhood friend, Adjunct Professor Marty Tankleff, who was himself wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for almost 18 years before being exonerated. Previous versions of the course have resulted in the exoneration and releases of Valentino Dixon, Eric Riddick, Keith Washington, Arlando “Tray” Jones III, Kenneth Bond, Muti Ajamu-Osagboro, and, most recently, Terrel Barros, while also providing significant progress in the legal prospects of several other potential exonerees who may be released in the future.

The class is scheduled for Fridays 9:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Students must keep their Fridays open, free from other classes or regular commitments. Students also will be regularly meeting and working together within smaller groups and consulting with the professors on other days of the week throughout the semester, as it aligns with their schedules.

The output for the course—which will be prepared by five groups of students working closely together in teams of three—will include the production of short documentaries that are humanizing portraits of the lives, families, and complicated legal cases of five people who were likely wrongfully convicted.

At the end of the semester, the students will present their final documentaries at a larger public event hosted by the Prisons and Justice Initiative.
<>br> The course will be restricted to a maximum of 15 Georgetown students. Priority will be given to those students who have a strong academic or practical background in this area, along with a passion for the issue of wrongful convictions and criminal justice reform. Having a background in investigative journalism and/or video production is a bonus, but not a requirement.

The enrollment process for this course will take place before live registration begins. Students who are admitted into the course will be automatically enrolled by the Registrar before the start of the live registration process.

The aim of this course is twofold. Practically, it is focused on the planning of your entire Senior Honors Thesis and the writing of one good draft chapter. We will also spend time on the nuts and bolts of researching and writing a thesis of this length. Logistical discussions about the Honors program requirements, procedures and deadlines will also be included. Intellectually, it is a forum for you to experiment, test and exchange various ideas with your colleagues in the Honors program. Moreover, you are also expected to constructively criticize and assess your colleagues’ work-in-progress. We will pursue these goals in various ways, beginning with some sessions on research, writing and citing, followed by in-depth assessments and discussions of previous Honors’ theses and culminating in student presentations of their current research. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 480 Dept Sem: Sr Honors Res Thesis in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This course will examine those dialogues of Plato that deal primarily with political philosophy. Plato, like nearly all early political philosophers, did not restrict his analyses of politics to merely questions of institutions. Rather, Plato's political thought extends well beyond politics to encompass and incorporate ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and theology into a philosophy that asks the fundamental questions of how we may best live both as individuals and as members of political communities. The answers that Plato gives to these questions do not depend on well-designed institutions as the key to successful politics, instead Plato requires us to first attend to the well being of the individual if good political practice is to be enjoyed by all citizens. In addition to considering Plato's political thought as a combination several branches of philosophical inquiry, the course will also examine the way in which his views on politics altered over time. There is a strongly marked difference between the political philosophy of the Republic and the ideas about politics offered in Plato's last work, Laws. Not only did Plato modify his proposed solutions and how they may be implemented, but also the grounds on which his arguments are based changed significantly from dialogue to dialogue. The importance, complexity, variety, and depth of Plato's political philosophy will be central to the lectures and discussion of this course. By understanding Plato's political thought, the student will be able to gain an appreciation of the manner in which he profoundly influenced the history of political philosophy.

This course explores how strategies of political control in modern authoritarian states have evolved over time.

This seminar examines the politics of inclusion in Latin America

This course considers the significance of the past to the present, looking through the lens of the philosophy of history.

This course examines how digital technologies are transforming power, authority, and governance at the national and international levels.

This course considers the actions of both formal and informal terrorist actors in the contemporary Middle East.

This course will examine the relationship of insurgencies to civil wars

This is a course in the history of political thought that explores the subject of global encounter by looking at a series of texts from Europe and Latin America.

In this course we will explore the rules and application of parliamentary procedure--the process by which bills, resolutions, and other business make their way through the U.S. federal legislature. We will examine how the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate operate within their respective chambers and how they resolve disputes among themselves by focusing on both the practical application of the rules and the broader theories behind why the rules are as they are. Students will come away with a practical understanding of how procedural rules function on Capitol Hill.

This course introduces students to the tools, methods, and skills necessary for making compelling quantitative graphics for politics (and other social behavior). Students are introduced to the elements of visual design. Students are trained to use the Tableau software to clean, analyze, and visualize data so that they can make both static and interactive portfolios. Students are required to create an aesthetically compelling and analytically sound graphic portfolio containing multiple graphs in a cohesive format. This is an ‘active learning’ course. Lectures will be minimal. Students will work individually and collaboratively to develop their skills in data manipulation and analysis, software programming, and graphical design. Graphical design and software training will emphasize creative problem solving.

A practical introduction to the art of great speech writing in the political arena

Legislation is the process of implementing power through words. In that world, precise language produced through clear thinking is vital. Drafting effective legislation requires more than simply a good policy idea. You have to understand how certain words have been interpreted by agencies and courts. One simple sentence or where you place language in the code could trigger dangerous procedural traps in the House of Representatives or the Senate. Legislation, even of the most narrow sort, must deal with procedural, substantive and legal barriers any of which could frustrate your ultimate goals if not adequately neutralized. In this course we will map out the potential concerns and work through the best ways to craft good policy into effective legislation.

Course Description GOVT 410 is a one-credit course supplements student internships by exploring leadership, management and communication practices that make people successful in government, political and related organizations. The goal is for students to understand the organization in which they work and to think deeply about how individuals and the organization can be more effective. Students who take the readings and discussions of this course to heart will be more successful, thoughtful and valuable contributors to any organization to which they belong. Each student must be working 10+ hours per week in an internship in accordance with an agreed upon schedule provided to the instructor. Class Structure The class will meet 8 times during the semester. The courses will be primarily discussion based, allowing students to integrate their experiences and the readings. The main assignment for the class is an 8-page paper in which each student identifies a problem facing his or her organization for and proposals a solution. Students are strongly encouraged to reach out to senior leaders in the organization to get ideas and feedback on the paper before submitting.

This course examines the American public policy process

This course explores politics from the perspective of the intersection between the fields of political science and theater/the performing arts.

Since 2018, the In Your Shoes project has been a way to move beyond the political divide by illuminating the hopes, fears, and dreams that animate the daily lives of students. This course will employ a myriad of techniques, skills, and exercises drawn from theater and performance and developed by Georgetown’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics to develop the skills, habits, and emotional foundation necessary for productive and respectful dialogue and understanding.

This course is designed to give students an understanding of the key national security issues facing U.S. government and private sector cyber decision-makers and stakeholders

This course examines kleptocracy through an interdisciplinary lens, drawing on the work of corruption scholars, investigative journalists, historians, policymakers, economists, and civil society organizations.

This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts of American legal systems through lectures, guest speakers, practical experiential exercises, and frequent field trips to courts, law firms, and law schools.

This course will consider the categories of race and gender and their impact on, and relationship to, American Politics.

This course will be taught by Erin Murphy in Spring 2016. Please follow this link for her bio: http://www.bancroftpllc.com/professionals/erin-e-murphy/. This seminar will focus on the practice of litigating constitutional cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Using several of the Court’s recent high-profile cases, the course will explore the tools that both the Court and the advocates who practice before it utilize when approaching the resolution of constitutional questions. Students will have the opportunity to take an in-depth look at some of the Court’s most important recent decisions and the briefing and oral arguments behind them, and to try their hand at approaching cases from both sides of the podium. As part of the course, students will be given legal writing assignments from the perspective of both an attorney arguing the case and a Justice deciding it, and also will have the chance to participate in moot courts as both an advocate and a Justice. The professor, a partner at a major Washington law firm, is an experienced Supreme Court litigator and argued the landmark McCutcheon v. FEC on the subject of campaign finance. This course is the annual Giles Seminar on constitutional law.

How are constitutions crafted, maintained, modified, and ultimately made to matter? What goals – both general and specific – do leaders have when writing constitutions, and under what conditions are those goals likely to be achieved? Do constitutions serve purposes beyond those that leaders anticipate for them? Is constitutionalism supportive of or at odds with democracy? Does what kinds of rights are included in a constitution matter? How do constitutional courts work and what difference do they make? How and why do the answers to these questions vary across countries and time? This course explores these and other questions through a comparative examination of the theory and practice of constitutionalism in democracy. The course is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the "building blocks” for studying constitutions and rights in comparative perspective. We review the basic issues and institutions involved in constitutionalism and the “new” constitutionalism (including rights, constitutional courts, and judicial review), consider the relationships among them, and examine some of the key scholarly debates regarding constitutions, constitutional courts, and constitutionalism. We then explore the origins and roles of constitutions, and the relevance of courts with constitutional or judicial review powers, in five polities that vary in terms of the type of critical moment at which the constitution was written: the United States (from scratch), Germany (under occupation), Brazil (post-authoritarian), Hungary (post-communist), and South Africa (post-apartheid). Our goal will be to understand how distinct founding conditions influence constitutional politics. The course concludes by applying the lessons we have learned about constitutionalism to Iraq. Throughout, we retain a focus on how and why constitutions and courts have advanced or impeded the exercise of civil, political, social, and/or economic rights.

This course explores the nature and implications of judicial politics, predominantly focusing on the United States Supreme Court.

This course will address emerging issues in contemporary constitutional law.

This seminar introduces students to the dynamics of the social and historical construction of race and ethnicity in American political life.

This course will consider the complex relationship between notions of political equality and the American democratic system.

This class will examine the American public's psychological attachments to political parties.

This course considers the role and impact of political polarization in U.S. politics.

The Hopper Undergraduate Seminar is named for Jill Hopper, a talented and beloved graduate student in the Department of Government, and is offered annually by an advanced graduate student in the Department based on a competitive application process. Jill Hopper was a Georgetown graduate student who started the joint MAGES/Govt Ph.D. degree program in 1994. She received a very prestigious fellowship to conduct her dissertation research in Berlin in 1997-98, where she passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. In memory of her talent, grace and promising academic career, the Hopper Memorial Fellowship and the Hopper Undergraduate Seminar continue her legacy of academic excellence in the best traditions of Georgetown University.

This seminar considers the relationship between women of color and politics.

This course examines the relationship between international business and government.

This course examines the unique challenges and opportunities faced by women in leadership positions in government, non-profit organizations, business and other policy domains.

This course examines the role of political parties in democratic systems.

This course will provide comparative and theoretical analyses of democratic political institutions. Political institutions are conceived as “the rules of the game”; basically, they establish the domains of public activity, the procedures to select leaders and the rules to make collective decisions. Different rules induce political actors to develop diverse strategies producing different outcomes. We will examine both the origins of the different institutional formulas and their consequences for policy-making, governmental performance, and democratic stability. Major topics include the foundations of political communities at city, state, continental and global levels; the diffusion of democracy in the world; the role of political parties in elections and in government formation; the relations between the executive and the legislative; electoral systems and other forms of representation and decision-making. We will also address the evolution, change and reforms of institutions in the world in a long-term perspective.

The Professor Walter I. Giles Endowed Seminar in Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties examines various facets of constitutional law and civil liberties, led by a recognized expert in the field.

This course will consider the political, religious and social dimensions of the state of Israel.

This seminar covers one of modern Palestine’s most seminal, formative, but forgotten chapters: the 1936-1939 Great Arab Revolt.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the post-Communist drift in Central and Eastern Europe, in the early 90s, liberal democracy was extended to the entire European continent. It was seen as the ideological and political victory of democracy and the path to its universalization. Yet today, more than two decades after these optimistic theories about the definitive sweep of liberal democracy across the globe, democracy faces new challenges and democratization remains a major issue around the world, even in Europe. The course introduces students to a variety of historical and theoretical perspectives on Democracy and Democratization in Europe and will be focused on the past heritages, present changes and future challenges for European democracies. Major topics to be discussed are: What is and what is not democracy; the waves of democratization; democracy and globalization; democracy and Europeanization; economic development and democracy; inequality and democracy; democracy, security and defense, economic crisis and democracy; crisis of democracy; populism and democracy.

This course engages four major themes in “Third World” Politics. For historical perspective on current concerns we begin with the literature on colonialism and the state. The second part of the course addresses democracy and democratization. The third part of the course explores persistent authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa in light of the concepts, theories, and propositions in the democratization literature. Part four turns to socioeconomic development in the Third World. The major focus is on the role of the state in Late Developers. In conclusion, we turn to student research on the Politics of the Third World.

The course explores a key theme of modern politics: public engagement. It adopts a comparative approach introducing students to different models of relationship between parliament and public.

This course has been redesigned in a lecture/discussion format for advanced undergraduate students. It is also open to Graduate Students in Government Department and SFS MA programs. There are no prerequisites. It is helpful but not mandatory for students to have some familiarity with at least one of the two cases. Knowledge of either Chinese or Russian (or both) is welcome but not necessary. THE PROBLEM: Communism as an economic and social system was abandoned almost everywhere within a remarkably short period of time, coinciding with the late 20th century era of globalization. We begin by exploring the relationship between globalization and the demise of Communism. Most of the semester will be devoted to examining the main social-economic systems that have replaced communism in the context of globalization. About a dozen countries have joined the European Union. While their process has been neither smooth nor painless, it is pretty straightforward. For other countries, there are two major development models. China offers a model of economic integration with the global economy without ending Communist Party rule. Soviet leaders introduced major political changes in an attempt to advance stalled economic reforms, leading to the breakup of the USSR. In Russia, the attempt to introduce democracy and a market economy led to something called “managed” or “sovereign”democracy and a Russian style of capitalism. Both China and Russia were among the world’s fastest-growing economies in the first years of the 21st century, yet they present two alternative models for development, differing markedly in their structural and existential relationships with the global economy. While Russia and China will be our primary focus, we will respect Mark Bloch’s admonition that any comparison must involve more than two cases by making frequent reference to the experience of ex-communist EU accession countries and India. MAJOR THEMES: After examining the exit from communism in the context of globalization and some key development questions, we will compare the two countries across a range of topics including regional policy, leading economic sectors, business and the state, corruption, the middle class, civil society, human capital, media and the Internet, inequality and WTO accession.

This course considers democracy in countries that transitioned from authoritarian rule during democracy's "third wave" (1970s through 1990s)

States and Institutions of Governance in Latin America (SIGLA) is a hands-on research-based course. Students will work as a team to collect data and contribute to the development of a digital database of information about states and institutions of governance in the countries of Latin America.

This course considers and compares mobilization and protest in different locations.

This course considers international financial governance through the lens of political economy.

Course Goals & Description This course introduces students to some major themes in politics of six Gulf States –Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The course visits each Gulf state in turn with an eye on their efforts in political and economic development. In each case the discussion will turn around a particular salient issue: state-religion relations in Saudi Arabia, state-society relations in Kuwait and Qatar, challenges of state and nation building in Oman, challenges of economic development in the UAE. While these issues will be discussed in depth in respective cases, the course will also bring to light similarities and differences across the Gulf region. The course finally discusses two further critical topics: transnational Shi’a network that also spans the Gulf and international relations of the Gulf. Texts & Readings David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia, I.B. Tauris Laurence Louer, Transnational Shia Politics, Oxford Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, Cambridge Marc Valeri, Oman: Politics and Society in the Qaboos State, Oxford Christopher Davidson, Abu Dhabi, Oxford Assignments & Expectations of Students Students’ final grade will depend on the following: Class Participation: 15% Critical Commentaries (four in total) on the books: 40% Final Research Paper 45%

The course will introduce students to the theoretical debates and issues surrounding natural resources in general, and oil in particular.

This class will cover issues pertaining to comparative and international political economy. Topics include inequality and redistribution, the politics of trade liberalization, political business cycles, and corruption.

This course situates Asian American politics in the context of ethnic minority activism in countries with Asian immigrant populations.

This course considers the interplay between democracy and the process of democratization

This seminar will provide a "hands on" overview of the skills, techniques and approaches that scholars and activists use to foster mutual recognition, empathy and truthful but respectful dialogues in societies divided by identity and ideological conflict. Two kinds of readings will guide this course: conceptual readings drawn from the literature on dialogue, cultural "reframing" and "hard conversations;" and a practice-oriented readings that exemplify grass-roots strategies and techniques for building trust, mutual understanding and empathy. These strategies are the core of this course. Together, will will learn and practice a variety of skills that experts in the field of conflict resolution are today using in many countries. Our focus will be on the context of extreme or "affective" polarization. For this purpose we will spend several class periods exploring the use of theater and performance as tools for fostering productive listening and mutual recognition. This work will draw from the "In Your Shoes" project at Georgetown University, from the "Theater of the Oppressed" project that is now practiced world-wide and from other hands-on initiatives and programs. The goal of this course is three-fold: first, for students to learn and practice a variety skills essential to productive dialogue; two, for students to see how these skills are taught and practiced in the deeply polarized arena of US society; and three, for students to feel confident that they can take these skills into their own societies to promote productive conversations, mutual respect and empathy across ideological, social and cultural divides. We hope to host at several class sessions visiting guest scholars and activists from Georgetown University and to organize at least one zoom session with US. grassroots groups such as "Braver Angels." No prior experience in this kind of skill building, or in theater, performance or dialogue work is required. What is vital is that you enter this class with open and generous hearts.

Seth Waxman, former Solicitor General of the United States during the Clinton administration, will be giving a class on the Supreme Court and it's unique place in American political life. [American Government].

This course considers the intersection of oil and politics in authoritarian regimes.

Globalization has had both integrative and disintegrative consequences for the US and the Americas. On the one hand it has led to increased economic integration and interdependence, leading to regional and hemispheric processes of political and economic integration. Democracy, free markets and trade have made great strides in the past decade or two. But globalization has also had less positive consequences, challenging state capacity, enabling international criminality, and spreading greater economic insecurity. Globalization also threatens traditional collective cultural identities. This course explores the impact globalization has had on US-Latin American relations. Among its objectives are to review the motor forces of globalization, to examine the evolving pattern of interaction between the United States and countries in the Western Hemisphere, to explore the impact of hemispheric integration and trade, and to assess the challenges that globalization poses in the areas of corruption, governance, and human rights as well as transnational crime and immigration.

The course examines Israel’s origins and analyzes the political, historical, religious, and economic forces shaping its future.

An undergraduate seminar on Israeli and Middle Eastern affairs taught by the Visiting Goldman Israeli Professor.

The course will explore Zionist and anti-Zionist thought in tandem by engaging with original texts and key figures who have shaped the more than century long debates over Zionism and its opposition.

Politics requires its own kind of intelligence that should be added to the list of human intelligences as its own category - “Political Intelligence”. The course will reflect on what is exactly the nature of this “political intelligence”, how is it manifested and could it be learnt.

This course focuses on Russian foreign policy since the Soviet collapse. Topics covered include: the legacy of the Cold War and how it ended; domestic sources of Russian foreign policy; U.S-Russian relations; Russia’ s relations with Europe; Sino-Russian relations and Russia as an Asian power; Russian energy and geopolitics; Russia in the Middle East; Russia’s relations with its neighbors and future scenarios for Vladimir Putin’s fourth Presidency.

This course exams the dynamics of has been called “global authoritarianism.” This term captures a number of processes and interactions including the following: 1) The rise of a loose coalition of authoritarian states including Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, and the efforts of these states to build economic, diplomatic and security linkages across the globe. 2) The impact of these efforts on processes of change in developing states, and on the capacity of Western leaders in diverse democracies to defy, manage or thwart local, regional and global pressures for authoritarianism. 3) The impact of global authoritarian on the maintenance of regional security, diplomatic and political structures such as the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the South Asian Treaty Organization. Special attention will be given to two phenomenon: First, democratic “decline” or “recession” as it has manifested itself countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Ukraine, and perhaps the US as well Second, processes of enhanced autocratization in the Middle East and other regions. How these national struggles are influence by global authoritarianism is a key theme in this course.

This seminar will explore the evolution of Diaspora politics from Hellenic and Roman time to our days. Why diasporas are such an important feature of the world system and how they are playing a role in security, economics, culture and political alliances. To what extant diasporas are complicating international politics and generating conflicts or are they playing a role as harbingers of peace? What are the differences between diasporas in the 19th century to those in the 21st? Are forces of globalization above all modes of transportation and communication truly effecting identity and the politics of those residing outside their ancestral lands? What is the role of theology and religion for diasporas? How liberal states of migrants reshaped diaspora politics, and what model us America providing? How diasporas are different from transnationals, and what are the differences between the "near abroad" and far-removed diasporas. The seminar will cover large materials in pol. Science and IR as well as in nationalism and the sociology of identity and migration. Students will be required to read regularly to class, participate actively, present short papers and selected a research topic which will be the basis for their seminar paper.

This course explores the English language literature on politics in the western part of the Arab World: the Maghreb or North Africa. We cover Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. To familiarize students with the region we will utilize case studies and the analytical tools adopted in the books assigned for this course. Beyond that, the course explores a number of important themes for the region in depth. These include Islamist politics, the political economy of development, regime transitions, women and minority rights, the politics of “Berber” identity, regional issues including the Western Sahara, and strategic and security relations.

This course is designed to offer students an opportunity to carefully consider the roots - both historical and philosophical - of political economy, as it has been thought about in the West. After considering a brief essay by a contemporary thinker assessing the case for economic and political liberalism at century’s end, we will begin in earnest by studying a several seminal arguments by authors who, in the eighteenth century, lay the foundation for optimism about the promise of commerce in the modern world. While other authors of this genre could be included, we will attend to the works of Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant. As we will discover, their optimism, however sober it may have been, was subsequently met by a series of powerful critiques that, some argue, have yet to be adequately answered. In the readings for the next portion of the course, we will consider several authors who reject conceptual apparatus that Smith and Kant provide, and offer different categories for thinking through the issue of political economy, broadly understood. The authors we will read here include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. Finally, we will read Alexis de Tocqueville. There we will discover that many of the critiques are answered, and many of the initial defenses of commerce are put on a more solid foundation.

This Department Seminar, offered for the first time in the fall of the 2016, will focus on the far-reaching changes taking place in Europe and Russia, using the example of energy as an illustration of the larger political and economic forces at work in the subcontinent in recent decades. A quarter-century after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Soviet empire, the West faces what it thought it would never see again—a quasi-Cold War in a redivided Europe. The vision that inspired the 1990s and the early 2000s, of a modern Russia integrated into the world economy and aligned in peaceful partnership with a reunited Europe, has abruptly vanished. Instead, a new line of conflict is being drawn across the map. For some, that vision was an illusion from the start, and the present is simply a reversion to a grim historic norm. Better security is indeed indispensable. But a stable and peaceful Europe requires a renewed search for shared interests, above all economic interest. Energy has a key role to play. But energy divides as well as unites, especially in a world increasingly concerned with the impact of energy on climate change. This seminar will explore the many facets of energy policy in Russia and Europe and the interaction between the two, which has become especially problematic in recent years, both because of far-reaching technological changes in the energy sector itself and because of the overall political deterioration in East-West relations over the last decade. The course will contain two sections that will meet jointly, one for undergraduates and one for graduate students from the CERES Master’s program.

Between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s, a wave of democratization swept through Southern Europe, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Countries in other regions (Asia, Africa) also joined this wave at different times. Despite initial optimism about these transitions, progress towards establishing and consolidating democracy has stalled or reversed in many contexts, and democracy has still not materialized in others. This divergence among country experiences raises a host of questions about the sources, institutions, quality, and stability of democracy. This course explores the causes, sketches the patterns, weighs the future, and examines the consequences of this dramatic wave of political change. The course begins by clarifying what democracy is (and is not), and examining competing theories about the conditions and causes of the emergence of democracy. Next, we consider why democratic institutions are chosen and how they function. We then discuss various types of democracy and various aspects of democratic quality – as well as different mechanisms through which democratic leaders can be held accountable for their actions. Finally, we explore the intersection of democracy and economics, and the foundations of democratic stability. These themes are examined in a variety of settings, with a particular focus on late 20th and early 21st century Eastern Europe and Latin America (with some references to sub-Saharan Africa as well).

This course will address the dramatic changes that have taken place over the past two decades in the region of East Central Europe. The nations of Eastern Europe have moved from relative political and economic conformity under Soviet domination to diversity and independence. We will study the political, social, economic, and security changes in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and the former German Democratic Republic. Special attention will be given to the challenge of simultaneous transitions to the market and democracy. Other topics include: the legacies of communism, nationalism, development of a party system, and European integration. Students will be expected to write two essays, take midterm and final examinations, and participate in classroom debates and discussions.

This course offers an analysis of the increasing trend of religious groups positing themselves as credible international collaborators in addressing global issues.

This course introduces the social and political history of the modern Middle East.

Why do some countries experience civil war? In this course, we will analyze the leading theories of civil-war outbreak. We will first unpack national-level conditions present in countries that experience war and absent in countries that are at peace. Second, we will investigate the micro-logic of violence, why individuals choose to fight. Our goal is to evaluate the logic behind these theories, critically assess the quantitative and qualitative evidence, and develop questions for new research.

This course considers Israel's religion, politics and society.

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This course offers an introduction to the contemporary politics of Latin America. The introductory section of the course considers historical dynamics and the foundation they laid for subsequent political and economic development in the region. We briefly examine the region’s colonial history, its wars of independence, and the struggle to construct nations and the emergence of industrialization in the 19th century. We also explore democratic development and the interventionist economic strategies that Latin American governments pursued through much of the 20th century, considering theories that seek to account for Latin American underdevelopment, the breakdown of democracy in the 1960s/1970s, and transitions from authoritarian rule in the 1980s. The rest of the course focuses on crucial contemporary questions. We consider democracy’s problems and pathologies; the various ways in which (and success with which) market reform has proceeded across the region; poverty, inequality, and informality; and the rule of law. We will also examine integration among Latin American countries, as well as the role the United States has played in the region. The final weeks of the course comprise case studies of a handful of Latin American nations.

This course will consider the Arab revolts in historical comparative perspective

This course introduces students to politics in the Arab world. It also examines authoritarian persistence in the region, authoritarian breakdown, and prospects for democratization, including the role of Islam in politics. Students will leave the course with a basic understanding of Arab politics and analytical tools to examine contemporary Arab politics. We survey Arab states from various analytical perspectives. The empirical reach will be region-wide, though there is a particular focus on the authoritarian regimes, which have broken down during the Arab Spring and their prospects for democratic transition and consolidation.

This course attempts to explain the origins of, the reasons for, and the policy implications of economic change in Asia. Along the way we will explore some political economy theories that may explain patterns of development, and critically examine political economy. Emphasis will be on the rapid rise of East Asia and recent change in South Asia (focusing on India and Pakistan). We will explore differences between development in East Asia, South Asia and Europe, drawing analytic and conceptual lessons from various country, industry, and sector cases. We will read historical analysis and socio-anthropological accounts of the emergence of state and market institutions in Japan, Korea, India, and “Greater China” (The PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong). Among the questions to be examined in this course will be: (1) Are there cultural, intellectual, institutional factors that favor some countries rather than others? (2) How have social, economic and political institutions shaped economic development outcomes in Asia? (3) What explains variation between the patterns and rates of development in East Asia, India, and Western Europe? (4) What may be the reasons for the relative lateness of industrialization of India, China and Korea compared with Japan? (5) Is there such a thing as an East Asian model of development? How might that model differ from South Asian (or other regional) models? (6) What were the causes and consequences of the 1990s Asian Financial Crisis, and how did countries respond to that crisis? (7) How do globalization, international relations and the global economy affect political economy processes and outcomes in Asia? Students in this seminar can get credit for the Asian Studies MA or undergraduate certificate, as an elective for PECO (the political economy concentration/certificate) and for INAF and IPOL.

The twentieth century introduced a series of technological revolutions that not only changed the way wars are fought but the altered the global calculus of how we think about the ends and means of violence, its prevention via deterrence and negotiated constraint. Students of these revolutions have traditionally tended to focus on the Western experience in the World Wars and Cold War and given primacy to that interpretation. However, on reflection, it is notable that Asia is the region where much of last century’s security innovation had both its proving ground and greatest impact. Asia has not only been the locus of military-technological “firsts,” but has been the focus of developing strategies to exploit these new systems. Equally impressive is recent Chinese deconstruction and analysis of what they call “the new revolution in military affairs” and their intellectual investment in developing strategic thought for theater campaigns under modern conditions. The purpose of this class is to introduce students to the evolution of twentieth century military technology as experienced in Asia as well as emerging twenty-first century strategic concepts being developed there. The purpose of this course is to address the relationship between rapid change in technological innovation and security in international relations with particular focus on the emergence of new weaponry and new ways of warfare. Attention will be given to two types of radical change: a “revolution in science” which facilitates weapons based on new principles that imply significant military advantage to the side that takes an early lead; and a “revolution in social organization,” where technological change forces existing decisional and institutional structures into dramatic restructuring. With respect to the latter, the class will focus effort on trying to understand how the Chinese military is thinking about these issues and provide students the opportunity to experiment with the changing Asian strategic balance over the next twenty years. The course is a combined lecture/lab and, as such, student participation is expected. A typical class will involve a one hour lecture on a pre-identified topic, with the second half of the class split between follow-up discussion informed by student readings of as well as general Q & A along with issues related to the Hegemon simulation. This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 399 Strategy & Technology in Asia in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

*This course will be taught by Benny Morris in Fall 2015.* TBA

The goal of this seminar is for students to deepen their understanding of the origins, behaviour, and evolution of armed non-state actors.

This course explores the dynamics of conflict, security, and strategic behavior in the contemporary Middle East

This course will provide comparative and theoretical analyses of democratic political institutions. Political institutions are conceived as “the rules of the game”; basically, they establish the domains of public activity, the procedures to select leaders and the rules to make collective decisions. Different rules induce political actors to develop diverse strategies producing different outcomes. We will examine both the origins of the different institutional formulas and their consequences for policy-making, governmental performance, and democratic stability. Major topics include the foundations of political communities at city, state, continental and global levels; the diffusion of democracy in the world; the role of political parties in elections and in government formation; the relations between the executive and the legislative; electoral systems and other forms of representation and decision-making. We will also address the evolution, change and reforms of institutions in the world in a long-term perspective.

The course explores the most important political attitudes and behaviors, addressing topics such as turnout, voting behavior, and political participation beyond voting.

What explains Israeli foreign policy? How does Judaism, Zionism, history, geopolitics, war and peace as related to the Arab-Israeli (and Israeli-Palestinian) conflict, and domestic politics have affected the engagement of Israel with the rest of the world? This Department Seminar explores the formation, formulation, evolution, and implementation of Israel’s foreign policy since 1948 to the present, in analytical and historical terms. In the first part of the Seminar, we will examine the roots, history, aims, and domestic sources of Israel’s foreign policy. In the second part, we will assess the foreign relations of Israel with its Middle Eastern neighbors, the United States, Germany, France, the EU, Soviet Union/Russia, China, Japan, the United Nations, the global context, the Global South (including Latin America, Africa, and India), and the Jewish Diaspora. In the third part, we will focus upon the Arab-Israeli conflict, the quest for peace, and the assessment towards the future. In the last two sessions of the course students will present their work in progress (seminar papers’ outlines).

This course will describe the way in which the politicization of Islam has been part of the nation-building project in many Muslim-majority countries, and how Islam has, in turn, become an integral part of national narratives in much of the Muslim world. In the light of the Arab Spring events that are still unfolding, we will examine the recent crisis of legitimacy that many of these newly formed nation-states have gone through. Crisis has translated into social upheaval and uneconomic unrest; the desire to reach ontological security and the desire to eliminate existential anxiety has arisen as a result and can explain the role of Islam in politics both nationally and internationally. During the course, we will systematically analyze the status of Islam within modern nation-states through case studies of Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia. Such case studies will show how Islamic references have been central to building modern national narratives and institutions, and how collective Islamic discourses and actions therefore must be analyzed in political and cultural terms.

This course considers the role of nuclear weapons in Middle East politics.

This course considers possible future developments for Russia

This class studies the sources and nature of grand strategy, which comprises a state’s deliberate effort to harness political, military, diplomatic, and economic tools to advance its national interest.

This course examines the evolution of patterns of political participation in Europe and their relationship to inequality.

This course provides a systematic analysis of political institutions and behavior in the Portuguese-speaking world, while considering the wider implications of their experience.

This course will consider the legal philosophy grounding theories of international law

This course will consider the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

This course will explore how nation-states use information as a diplomatic tool and a weapon of armed and non-armed conflict.

This course considers the relationship between state formation and political change.

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This course examines the role of sanctions in the foreign policy of the United States government.

This course is being offered as The 2013 Professor Walter I. Giles Endowed Seminar. A seminar focusing on the intersection of national security and Constitutional law -- particularly separation of powers and civil liberties -- in the post 9/11 era. Working with primary documents, journalistic accounts, and the writings of former government officials, students will learn to think critically about such enduring topics as whether and when the president has the power to lawfully override statutes and to initiate warfare without congressional authorization, as well as military commissions, interrogation policy, surveillance, indefinite detention, government secrecy, and targeted killings. The course will place an emphasis on student preparation for, and active participation in, classroom discussions as well as the development of writing skills. Charlie Savage is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter who writes about the Department of Justice and national security legal policy. Michael Davidson is a former Senate Legal Counsel who represented the Senate in separation of powers litigation. Most recently he served as General Counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This course focuses on how internal politics - institutional resource allocation - and external politics - the international system - influence defense innovation.

This seminar will provide a theoretical grounding in the intersection of the political economy of finance and the political economy of development.

This course examines U.S. law bearing on intelligence activities and on the relationship between national security and individual rights.

This course will analyze how international agreements, laws, and relationships impact the extraterritorial protections of citizens and the obligations of foreign states to safeguard the citizens of other countries.

This seminar is an intensive and interactive exploration of the making of US foreign policy, focusing on the National Security Council system that has driven US policy since 1947.

In this course, we will investigate the relationship between modernization, politics, and Islam in Muslim-majority countries. This course provides a unique overview of the historical and political developments from the end of World War II to the Arab Spring that have made Islam a major political force, and discusses Islam’s impact on emerging democracies in the contemporary Middle East We will systematically analyze the status of Islam within modern nation-states through several case studies” Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey as well as Egypt and Tunisia. Such case studies will show how Islamic references have been central to building modern national narratives and institutions, and how collective Islamic discourses and actions will influence post authoritarian regimes and democratic transitions. The analysis of each country will be based on a discussion of the theories of modernization and democratization as well as on a comparison with other similar developments in other parts of the world.

This course explores the interaction of religion and politics in majority Muslim countries. From this course, students will attain a general understanding of this interaction as well as relatively specialized knowledge about various aspects of the topic. The course provides knowledge about Islam, political Islam (the politicization of Islam by Islamist movements and groups, activists, and intellectuals) and democracy and democratization in countries with strong Islamist social movements and political parties. Our perspective will be historical, doctrinal, ideological, and based in contemporary political analysis. The first half of the course provides historical context for the case studies we will compare and contrast in the second half of the course.

This course examines the geopolitical dimensions of climate policy.

This discussion and research seminar will consider the science, economics, ethics and politics of global climate change. It will focus on leadership strategies and policies that leaders might adopt in preparation for a new international climate change agreement projected to be signed in Paris in December 2015. Each student will write and present several discussion papers, a book review and a professional policy memo. Students will come to class prepared to discuss a set of readings organized around two broad themes: Foundations (global public goods, climate science, climate economics and climate justice) and Leadership Strategies (public opinion, media filters, frames, politics and policy initiatives and international agreements). A selection of contemporary journal articles and supplementary books for review will be placed on electronic reserve in the Lauinger Library. Students will be asked to deploy and develop their own independent research, writing and presentation skills. Four books will be required for purchase: John Broome, Climate Matters; Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time--Why The Struggle Against Climate Change Failed and What It Means for our Future; Eric Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers and the Fight to Save the Earth; and Thomas Hale, David Held, and Kevin Young, Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation is Failing When We Need It Most. The course is designed for MA students in American Government and for senior undergraduates. Questions? Please contact the instructor at (703) 539-9509.

This course will analyze the works of some important (primarily European) 20th- century European Marxists and place their ideas within the political contexts in which they were active. Our discussion will have a dual perspective. We shall explore their efforts to account for the failure of revolutions to materialize along the lines predicted by Karl Marx and also consider the innovations and revisions they elaborated in adapting Marxist ideas and doctrine to the situations in their respective countries or areas of the world.

This course explores how social movements have emerged as transformative agents in resisting oppression and advancing rights.

In consequence of its Catholic and Jesuit heritage and purpose, Georgetown University is committed to assisting students in exploring and probing the ethical dimensions and consequences of every field of human endeavor and scholarship. For those studying and preparing to work in the field of international relations, the ethical challenges are great, given phenomena like: genocide; terrorist attacks on non-combatants; state–sponsored brutalization of poor and/or powerless populations; famine; refugee and migrant outflows, and environmental degradation. Moreover, states continue to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction capable of destroying the human community and the planet and “small arms”—ranging from machetes to anti-personnel landmines—capable of wreaking widespread harm. The purpose of "GOVT 420: Ethical Issues in International Relations" is to investigate three questions in world politics: To what extent are states (and their leaders) obligated to act in accord with moral principles in their relations with other states? What is the chief content of these obligations—as these constrain a state’s external and internal sovereignty—and what are the limits of obligation? What ethical frameworks have theorists and practitioners of world politics developed over the centuries that may assist students of international relations in developing a coherent perspective on the question of moral obligations between and among states? This course has been renumbered, effective Fall 2014. A student who earned credit for GOVT 420 Ethical Iss Intrnl Reltns in a prior term should not enroll and cannot earn credit in this class.

This seminar, using documentary evidence, will deal with Israeli-Arab relations during the first decade of Israel's existence, 1949-1956. It will focus on the "border wars" between Israel and its neighbors, principally Egypt (the Gaza Strip), Jordan (the West Bank), and Syria, and the problems of Arab infiltration and the demilitarized zones, which triggered these conflicts. We will look at the nature of that infiltration, with its growing terrorist component, and the Arab governments' policies on the matter, and Israel's responses to the infiltration, eventually leading to the reprisals policy. We will examine some of these reprisals--including Qibya, 1953--in depth. Ultimately, we will examine the count-down to the Sinai/Suez War, the course of that war, and its consequences.

This course focuses upon the topic of negotiations and conflict resolution in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1977 to the present.

This course examines the evolution of U.S.-China relations from the late 19th century through the present. Students will develop an understanding of critical historical junctures and important themes in U.S.-China relations. Key themes to be explored include: economic interdependence, energy and the environment, human rights, Taiwan, security and power, changing public attitudes, and future trends in U.S.-China relations. To the extent possible, the course will address both Chinese and American perspectives on this important bilateral relationship.

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This course considers immigration in the context of political theories of citizenship

Everywhere we witness greater tensions and confrontations between religions and the secular principles of the international system. This course will address the following questions: Has secular nationalism failed? Why is religion seen as a legitimate alternative form of politics nationally and internationally? Is there a proclivity to violence from religious extremists? This course will assess the influence of religion on political violence at both the domestic and international level by looking at the theories of war in Islam and Christianity and their resonance with current conflicts in Iraq, Syria, sub Saharian `Africa and South East Asia. Each session will present the evolution of religious positions vis-à- vis political violence in different geopolitical contexts as well as the ways secular conflicts tend to become sacred. It will analyze the multifaceted calls to Jihad from Hezbollah or Hamas to ISIS. It will compare religious revolution and religious nationalisms from a Christian and Muslim perspectives.

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This course will consider the thought of W.E.B. Dubois and his relationship to political philosophy more generally

This course will provide an interdisciplinary examination of the relevance of religion to medical policy, pandemic-related political violence, and cultural and ethnic diversity.

In this course, we will study primary texts of political theory which together convey the range of political thought available to us today, from right to left. The terms and self-understandings we have today are indebted to these texts; if we are to understand the crisis of our time, we must return to them and understand them well.

This course focuses on the global and domestic context in which mass human rights violations occur and the methods of making amends that follow. Individual rights and obligations will be examined through the frame of international human rights and humanitarian law. We will consider the rise of the global transitional justice movement and the related mechanisms (trials, truth commissions, reparations, lustration, institutional reform, and amnesty laws) employed to facilitate peace, reconciliation, and justice. The legacy of slavery and Georgetown University’s approach to addressing it will feature among several global and domestic cases evaluated in this course.

This course explores the politics of the historical intertwining of race and capitalism.

The purpose of this class is to provide students with a basic understanding of democratic theory by considering the problems and opportunities that AI poses for the future of democratic governance.

This course will engage in a close reading of the Federalist Papers

This course will take a close look at the first year of the Biden Presidency

In this course we will explore the role of speech in a democracy by examining the ways in which rhetorical discourse constitutes democratic practice. Historically, democracy in America has always been a rhetorical construction, complete with its own narrative thread, idioms, themes and images. Many of these were informed by classical political theory, and so in the first third of the course we will read parts of those works that deal directly with speech, rhetoric, and politics—Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War, Plato’s Republic and the Gorgias, Aristotle’s Politics and Rhetoric. At the same time, we will read speeches from the early days of the American republic, including the New England theocracy and speeches surrounding the American revolution and the constitutional debates. As American culture changed over time, however, so too did the relationship between speech and politics. In the second third of the course we will read selections from modern and Enlightenment political theorists, such as J.S. Mill, Hobbes, and Tocqueville to explore the shifting meanings of speech and democratic practice. For this section of the course we will read speeches on the American Frontier, the rise of commercialism, and of course speeches about slavery and the civil war, including selections from Gary Wills' breathtaking book Lincoln at Gettysburg. For the last third of the course we will look at contemporary political theory’s treatment of discourse and democracy, with a special focus on deliberation and citizenship. Here we will explore the important rhetorical functions of critique and dissent, focusing on speeches and texts concerning civil rights, economic freedoms, and other contentious political issues. Political theory readings will be drawn from John Rawls, Iris Young, Chantal Mouffe, Susan Bickford, Hannah Arendt and Richard Rorty.

This course offers an overview of classic texts in modern political thought Attention is given to thinkers’ historical contexts, their debates across time with one another, and the relevance of their political thought today.

This course covers the relationship between political theory, capitalist economics and economic growth.

This is the advanced political theory seminar for Honors students in the Government department. This year the theme of the course is knowledge in a scientific age. It is designed to provide students with an opportunity to reflect together on issues in the development of the scientific enterprise, from a broad historical perspective. The course is designed as a supplement to Elements of Political Theory, and will culminate in a major research paper, on a topic of students’ choosing, but relating to the intersection of politics and science in the contemporary world. We will begin the course with a brief consideration of some of the political problems that attend the human effort to understand the world. Why has knowledge traditionally be seen as dangerous? How can scientific authority be consistent with democratic principles? We will then turn to explore the foundations of the modern sciences through a study of some of the key works of Francis Bacon. What was the scope of his vision for modern science, and what was his original vision for a scientific politics? What were some of the hopes that attended the scientific revolution, and what were some of the anticipated dangers? The second half of the course will involve a survey of alternative perspectives on scientific advancement. We will ask, along with Rousseau, whether scientific advancement necessarily brings ethical improvement. We will ask, along with some of the American Founders, what the role of science should be in the American context. We will ask, along with Weber and Nietzsche, whether science and ethics can ever be separated, and we will ask, along with Heidegger, about the meaning and power of technology. By way of conclusion, we will consider what kinds of new political institutions might be needed in an age of increasing scientific complexity.