Political Science

University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2019-20 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Spring 2020 COVID-19 Measures

Overview

The Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science has long been one of the world's finest. We pride ourselves on our deep commitment to intellectual excellence, and to supporting inquiry and teaching that combines rigor, relevance, and openness to a variety of methodological and analytical approaches. With over 50 faculty and lecturers, the Department covers a vast range of important issues in political life. We offer an unusual combination of depth and breadth in the major subject areas of political science. We cover not only the traditional subfields of American politics, comparative politics, international relations, and political theory, but also areas such as formal theory, methods, organizations and public policy, political behavior, and public law, as well as the politics of every major region on the globe. Reflecting the department's broad understanding of our subject matter and enduring commitment to interdisciplinary inquiry, many members have joint appointments in other schools (including Business, Information, Law, and Public Policy) and departments (including Economics and Sociology), as well as strong connections to a variety of research centers around campus.

Each year, the department serves approximately 1,000 declared and intended undergraduate majors, and graduates approximately 400 students with a BA degree. Outstanding undergraduate education is central to our mission. To reflect our commitment to undergraduates, we have made several major innovations in recent years, including a new set of requirements for graduation, a substantially enhanced Honors program, and a new seminar program to increase opportunities for undergraduates to work with faculty in small groups.

The department has an outstanding doctoral program, designed to prepare students for careers in university teaching and to conduct advanced research. Approximately 20 students enter our program each year and roughly 125 are enrolled at any given time. Our graduate students take courses that offer state-of-the-art training in the conduct of research, combined with a very wide-ranging curriculum addressing fundamental issues in politics. We also seek to integrate them rapidly into an intellectual community that prizes scholarly development through the exchange of ideas and the sharing of work in progress. After completing their work here, many will go on to take jobs at the country's leading colleges and universities.

Undergraduate Program

Political Science: BA

Graduate Program

Political Science: PhD

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Courses

Political Science

Faculty and Instructors

+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Vinod K. Aggarwal, Professor. Political science, negotiations, trade policy, international organizations, international debt rescheduling.
Research Profile

Christopher Ansell, Professor. Political science, social movements, political sociology, network analysis, organization theory, public administration, political parties, Western Europe.
Research Profile

Sarah F. Anzia, Associate Professor. American politics, public policy, interest groups, state politics, local politics, election timing, voter turnout, public pensions, public sector unions, collective bargaining.

Leonardo R. Arriola, Associate Professor. Democracy, elections, political parties, political violence, ethnic politics, electoral coalitions, Sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Cameroon, Senegal.
Research Profile

Mark Bevir, Professor. Public policy, political theory, democratic theory, governance, Britain.
Research Profile

Henry Brady, Professor. Comparative politics, public policy, electoral politics, political participation, survey research, program evaluation, statistical methods in the social sciences, social welfare policy, Soviet Union, inequality in America.
Research Profile

+ Wendy L. Brown, Professor. Feminist theory, critical theory, theories of neoliberalism, public higher education, nineteenth and twentieth century political theory.
Research Profile

Jennifer L. Bussell, Assistant Professor. Africa, comparative politics, Latin America, public policy & organization, South Asia.

Kiren A. Chaudhry, Associate Professor. Political economy, Middle East/North Africa, identity politics, trauma theory, South Asia .

Pradeep K. Chhibber, Professor. Political parties, South Asia, electoral politics, politics of India.
Research Profile

Jack Citrin, Professor. Immigration, multiculturalism, taxation, survey research, political trust, California politics psychology, public opinion, political identity, alienation.
Research Profile

Ernesto Dal Bo, Associate Professor. Applied microeconomic theory, political economy, corruption and influence, collective decision-making, coercion.
Research Profile

Rui J. De Figueiredo, Associate Professor. American politics, game theory, formal theory, political institutions, bureaucratic behavior, political behavior, interest groups, methodology.
Research Profile

Lowell Dittmer, Professor. Comparative politics, Chinese politics, informal politics, East Asian international relations.
Research Profile

Thad Dunning, Professor. Political economy, ethnic politics, and comparative clientelism in developing countries, research design, causal inference, statistical methods, multi-method research.

Barry Eichengreen, Professor. Europe, China, economic growth, international economics, international finance, international monetary economics, economic history.
Research Profile

Sean Farhang, Associate Professor. Courts, American political development, regulation, litigation .

M. Steven Fish, Professor. Political science, post-Soviet politics, democratization regime change, general comparative politics, Russian revolution, communist and post-communist studies, democracy.
Research Profile

Sean P. Gailmard, Professor. Bureaucratic organizations, American political institutions, rational choice game theory, statistical modeling, laboratory experimentation in social science.
Research Profile

+ Ron E. Hassner, Associate Professor. International relations, international security, religion and conflict.
Research Profile

Rodney E. Hero, Professor. American democracy and politics, latino politics, racial/ethnic politics, state & urban politics, federalism .

Kinch Hoekstra, Associate Professor. History of political, moral, and legal philosophy, ancient, renaissance, and early modern political thought.

Susan Hyde, Professor. International influences on domestic politics (with a focus on the developing world), International election observation, election fraud, and democracy promotion.

Daniel Lee, Assistant Professor. Political theory, history of political thought, jurisprudence.

Taeku Lee, Professor. Political science, discrimination, language, social movements, political behavior, identity, racial and ethnic politics, public opinion, survey research methods, social welfare policies, partisanship, stereotypes.
Research Profile

Gabriel Lenz, Associate Professor. American politics, elections, voter behavior, democratic accountability, campaigns.
Research Profile

Amy E. Lerman, Associate Professor. American government, public opinion, criminal justice, prisons and policing.
Research Profile

Jonah Levy, Professor. Political science, social policy, comparative political economy, West European politics, relationship between partisanship and welfare reform in contemporary Western Europe.
Research Profile

Andrew Little, Assistant Professor. Game theory, authoritarian politics, political beliefs, protest.
Research Profile

Andrew Little, Assistant Professor. Formal models to study authoritarian politics, communication and information manipulation, and conflict.

Aila Matanock, Assistant Professor. Post-conflict elections, peace-building, international intervention, state-building, governance, armed actors, Latin America, survey experiments, mixed methods.
Research Profile

Michaela Mattes, Assistant Professor. International Conflict and Cooperation, Conflict Management, Domestic Politics and International Relations.
Research Profile

Joel Middleton, Assistant Professor. Methodology & formal theory, models & politics, causal inference, survey sampling, design-based estimation .

Cecilia Mo, Assistant Professor. Inequality, immigration, human trafficking, political behavior, voting and elections, political socialization, research design and empirical methods .
Research Profile

Kevin J. O'Brien, Professor. Social movements, Chinese politics, peasant politics.
Research Profile

T.J. Pempel, Professor. Political science, comparative politics, political economy, East Asian studies, contemporary Japan, Asian regionalism.
Research Profile

Paul Pierson, Professor. Public Policy, political economy, american politics, social theory.

Alison Post, Assistant Professor. Regulation, infrastructure, water and sanitation.
Research Profile

Robert L. Powell, Professor. Political science, game theory, international relations, formal theory and methods, nuclear deterrence theory, credibility, international conflict.
Research Profile

Gerard Roland, Professor. Institutions and development, culture and economics, political institutions and economic outcomes, European Parliament and European institutions, reforms in China/North Korea/Eastern Europe.
Research Profile

Eric Schickler, Professor. American politics, Congress, political parties, public opinion.
Research Profile

Jasjeet S. Sekhon, Professor. Program evaluation, statistical and computational methods, causal inference, elections, public opinion, American politics .

Helene Silverberg, Associate Adjunct Professor. Transitional justice, international criminal law, gender and international human rights, and the politics of institutional change.

Sarah Song, Professor. Gender, race, citizenship, multiculturalism, immigration law and politics.
Research Profile

Laura Stoker, Associate Professor. American politics, political behavior, political psychology, public opinion, voting and elections, political socialization, research design and empirical methods.
Research Profile

Robert Van Houweling, Associate Professor. Congress, political behavior, political parties, voting behavior, spatial models of candidate competition, experimental models.

Steven Vogel, Professor. Political science, political economy or comparative political economy, the Japanese model of capitalism, Japanese politics.
Research Profile

Edward W. Walker, Associate Adjunct Professor. Comparative politics, Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, Soviet, post-Soviet.
Research Profile

Martha Wilfahrt, Assistant Professor. African politics, political economy of development, redistributive politics.
Research Profile

Jason Wittenberg, Associate Professor. Ethnic politics, statistical methods, Eastern Europe, religion and politics, voting behavior.
Research Profile

Lecturers

Terri Bimes, Lecturer SOE.

Amy Gurowitz, Lecturer.

Ted Lempert, Lecturer.

Nadesan Permaul, Lecturer.

Alan David Ross, Lecturer.

Dan Schnur, Lecturer.

Darren C. Zook, Lecturer.

Emeritus Faculty

George W. Breslauer, Professor Emeritus. Political science, comparative politics, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, Russian politics, foreign relations, political leadership.
Research Profile

Bruce Cain, Professor Emeritus.

David Collier, Professor Emeritus. Democracy & authoritarianism, Latin America, concept analysis, qualitative methods, multi-method research, comparative politics.

Ruth B. Collier, Professor Emeritus. Latin America, comparative politics, political regimes, democratization, labor politics.

Beverly Kay Crawford, Professor Emeritus.

Jyotirindra Das Gupta, Professor Emeritus. Political science.
Research Profile

Giuseppe Di Palma, Professor Emeritus.

A. James Gregor, Professor Emeritus. Political science, methodology, political theory, comparative ideology, US security interests, comparative fascism, Marxism and Fascism in the 20th century.
Research Profile

Andrew C. Janos, Professor Emeritus. Eastern Europe, world systems theory, ethnic conflict.

Ken Jowitt, Professor Emeritus. Political science, comparative politics, social theory.
Research Profile

Todd R. Laporte, Professor Emeritus. Technology policy, organization theory, public administration.

Hong Yung Lee, Professor Emeritus. Political science, East Asian studies.
Research Profile

David K. Leonard, Professor Emeritus.

+ Hanna Pitkin, Professor Emeritus. Political theory.

Robert Price, Professor Emeritus. Political science, South African politics, comparative politics, US Foreign policy, ethnicity.
Research Profile

J. Merrill Shanks, Professor Emeritus. Election behavior, public opinion, research methodology, survey techniques.
Research Profile

Peter W. Sperlich, Professor Emeritus.

Shannon C. Stimson, Professor Emeritus. Politics in Shakespeare, history of early modern political thought, history of political and economic thought, constitutionalism and modern jurisprudence.
Research Profile

Margaret M. Weir, Professor Emeritus. Political science, political sociology, sociology, American political development, urban politics and policy, comparative studies of the welfare state, metropolitan inequalities, city-suburban politics in the United States.
Research Profile

J. Nicholas Ziegler, Professor Emeritus. Political science, technology, corporate governance, comparative political economy, European politics, political ideologies, politics of economic reform in Germany, politics of property rights in Germany.
Research Profile

John Zysman, Professor Emeritus. Political science, comparative politics, finance, political economy, manufacturing, European and Japanese policy, corporate strategy, Western European politics, post-industrial economy, governments, the politics of industrial change.
Research Profile

Contact Information

Department of Political Science

210 Barrows Hall

Phone: 510-642-6323

Fax: 510-642-9515

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Chrisopher Ansell, PhD

766 Barrows Hall

cansell@berkeley.edu

Department Vice-Chair and Director of Undergraduate Affairs

Jonah Levy, PhD

762 Barrows Hall

Phone: 510-642-4686

jlevy@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Adviser

Efrat Amanda Cidon

Phone: 510-643-2258

cidon@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Adviser

Suzanne McDermott

Phone: 510-643-1908

smcd@berkeley.edu

Director of Graduate Affairs

Leonardo Arriola

776 Barrows Hall

larriola@berkeley.edu

Graduate Student Advisor

Nicole Rucinski

Phone: 510-643-4408

nicoler@berkeley.edu

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