• Department of Political Science

    The Department of Political Science is devoted to the study of politics and government, domestically and abroad. This includes the study of political institutions that exercise government authority, including legislatures, courts, and administrative agencies; political organizations through which individuals and groups seek to reshape the political landscape, including parties, interest groups, and social movements; public policies that reflect governmental efforts to regulate the actions of individuals and corporations, including civil rights, immigration, and environmental policy; and the interactions between and among nation-states and transnational organizations that shape patterns of trade and development, conflict and cooperation, war and peace.

    At the undergraduate level, political science majors will be exposed to political inquiry across a broad array of substantive topics, while also concentrating in one of the following areas: American Politics & History, Law & Politics, Political Economy, Political Participation & Mobilization, Global Governance & Foreign Policy, Political Violence & Conflict, Public Policy, Parties & Elections, Comparative Politics, Citizenship & Democracy, or Political Thought & Philosophy.

    At the graduate level, doctoral students receive broad training in quantitative and qualitative methods of social science research, while also concentrating in two of the following substantive fields: American Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Political Theory, Public Administration & Policy, Law & Courts, or Security Studies.

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    Keck provides insight on court-packing battles to come in Wash Post

    "The new Democratic majority in the House spells big trouble for President Trump," says Thomas Keck. "But it also could be the first step in unmaking his longer legacy, particularly when it comes to the Supreme Court." Read more in Keck's article "The Supreme Court justices control whether court-packing ever happens," published in the Washington Post.
     

    Maxwell's first-ever Huxley scholar has found her intellectual home

    From the moment Brielle Valenza stepped foot in the Maxwell Auditorium as a first-year student, she knew she had come to the right place. "The sense of history in that room is palpable."
     

    Is Trumpism coming to an end? Reeher discusses in Washington Monthly

    Grant Reeher was interviewed for the Washington Monthly article "The Midterms Were Not the Beginning of the End of Trumpism." "Polarization is many decades in the making and won’t go away with Trump,” says Reeher. "He’s merely exacerbated it."
     
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