Political Science

University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2022-23 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Overview

The Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science has long been one of the finest centers of political science research and teaching in the world. We pride ourselves on a deep commitment to intellectual excellence and to 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 issues important to political life. We offer an unusual combination of depth and breadth in the major subject areas of political science, from the traditional subfields of American politics, comparative politics, international relations, and political theory to the more specialized subfields of formal theory, methods, political behavior, public policy & organization, public law and race & ethnic politics. Our research and teaching cover 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 and departments (including Economics, Business, Information, Law, and Public Policy), as well as strong connections to a variety of research centers around campus.

Each year, the department serves over 1,000 declared and intended undergraduate majors, and graduates approximately 450 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 10-20 students enter our program each year and roughly 90 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.
Research Profile

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

Terri Bimes, Associate Teaching Professor.

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

Ryan Brutger, Assistant Professor. International relations, international political economy, international law, political psychology.
Research Profile

David Broockman, Associate Professor. American Politics, Political Behavior, Political Representation, Elections.
Research Profile

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

Daniela Cammack, Assistant Professor. Ancient greek politics and philosophy, Roman: medieval and modern political ideas and practices, the history of political economy (especially Marx) and the history and theory of democracy.
Research Profile

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

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

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

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

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

Erin Hartman, Assistant Professor.

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

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

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

Desmond Jagmohan, Assistant Professor. History of American and African American political thought, American intellectual history, and the History of Political Thought.
Research Profile

Marika Landau-Wells, Assistant Professor. Conflict, national security, political psychology.
Research Profile

Daniel Lee, Associate 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, Professor. American politics, elections, voter behavior, democratic accountability, campaigns.
Research Profile

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

Jonah Levy, Associate 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, Associate Professor. Game theory, authoritarian politics, political beliefs, protest.
Research Profile

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

Michaela Mattes, Associate 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, Associate 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

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

Alison Post, Associate Professor. Regulation, infrastructure, water and sanitation.
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

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

Scott Straus, Professor.

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

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

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

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

Lecturers

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

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

Bruce Cain, Professor Emeritus.

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

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.

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

Giuseppe Di Palma, Professor Emeritus.

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

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

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.

David K. Leonard, Professor Emeritus.

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

* 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

Laura Stoker, Professor Emeritus. American politics, political behavior, political psychology, public opinion, voting and elections, political socialization, research design and empirical methods.
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 Social Sciences Building

Phone: 510-642-6323

Fax: 510-642-9515

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Susan Hyde

786 Social Sciences Bldg.

susanhyde@berkeley.edu

Department Vice-Chair

Sean Gailmard

750 C Social Sciences Bldg.

Phone: 510-642-1624

gailmard@berkeley.edu

Director of Graduate Affairs

Daniel Lee

760 Social Sciences Bldg.

dan.lee@berkeley.edu

Director of Undergraduate Affairs

Jonah Levy, PhD

762 Social Sciences Bldg.

Phone: 510-642-4686

jlevy@berkeley.edu

Director of Administration

Serena Groen

Phone: 510-642-1025

serena_groen@berkeley.edu

Curriculum Planner Enrollment Manager

Bryana McBride

Phone: 510-642-9830

blmcbride@berkeley.edu

Graduate Student Advisor

Erin Blanton

Phone: 510-642-6467

psgradadvise@berkeley.edu

Graduate Student Advisor

Stephanie Alcid

Phone: 510-643-4408

pscadmit@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Adviser

Suzanne McDermott

Phone: 510-643-1908

psadvise@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Adviser

Efrat Amanda Cidon

Phone: 510-643-2258

psadvise@berkeley.edu

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