Program Overview
The Department of Political Science offers graduate work leading to the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Detailed information on requirements for degrees may be obtained from the Department of Political Science.
The M.A., Accelerated M.A., and Ph.D. programs are intended to prepare students for careers in research, in college or university teaching, or in public service. The department’s view of the discipline of political science is eclectic, based on the assumption that the study of politics is not reducible to any single set of methodological premises through which certainty and comprehensiveness of knowledge can be established. Instead, the department attempts to maintain a broadly based overview of political science, using whatever theories and methods seem likely to provide appropriate responses to the central questions of politics.
M.A. and Ph.D. students are required to do coursework in at least three of the following fields: American Politics, Comparative Politics, Political Theory, Methods, International Relations, Intradisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Political Studies, Public Law, and Public Policy. A thesis or analogous evidence of research capacity is required of all M.A. candidates. Ph.D. candidates are required to complete comprehensive examinations in two fields of concentration prior to undertaking the Ph.D. dissertation. Competency in a foreign language or research methods is encouraged for all M.A. and Ph.D. candidates.
The cross-field commitments of the department are reflected in the graduate curriculum. The department is committed to maintaining graduate program excellence in the traditional fields of political science—American national politics, comparative politics, international relations, political theory, public law, and public policy and administration. In addition, the department offers coursework and encourages doctoral students to pursue research questions that cross the domains of two or more fields. Course offerings include broad survey courses of the fields as well as the following cross-field seminars: Collective Action and Political Change; Feminist Theory and Politics; Human Security; International Environmental Politics; Language and Politics; Political Dissent;and Technology, Power, and Governance. In addition, the department has launched cross-field workshops engaging faculty and graduate students in presentations of work in progress in each of the three Initiative areas. The department believes that often the most interesting and important political questions transcend disciplinary fields and encourages faculty and students to work at these intersections.
The department offers two PhD concentrations: Political Science & Research Methods concentration and concentration in Methodologies of Political Inquiry. The Political Science & Research Methods concentration provides students with the option of emphasizing their methodological development within the Ph.D. program. The concentration is designed to provide a flexible curriculum that introduces students to both basic and advanced methods for their political science research. The concentration in Methodologies of Political Inquiry provides a foundation in the epistemological, ontological, and philosophical commitments guiding different modes of social scientific inquiry. It offers an introduction to a range of methodological approaches, including but not limited to: quantitative and qualitative analysis, interpretation, ethnography, feminist methodologies, discourse analysis, critical theory, and historiography.