Teaching

Courses

Survey Research Practicum

Survey Research is a graduate practicum designed to prepare students to critically evaluate existing survey research and design their own surveys--and give students real experiences in survey research. The course will introduce the total error perspective to survey research and then apply it to study the effects of mea- surement error, nonresponse error, and coverage error in addition to sampling error. Topics include: survey design and total survey error; interviewer training, supervision, and verification; question- naire development and refinement; sample design and generation of a sampling pool; respondent selection and control; sample control, execution, and response rates; item editing and coding; data processing and cleaning; sample weighting; dissemination and use of survey findings. The course also engages survey experiments, as well as the ethics of survey research (the Institutional Review Board and pre-analysis plans).

Political Analysis via Maximum Likelihood Estimation

Maximum Likelihood Estimation is a graduate course in quantitative empirical analysis. We focus on cases in which the assumptions of ordinary least squares (OLS) may be violated, in particular when the data are discrete, truncated, or non-normally distributed. We will use both maximum likelihood and Bayesian techniques for estimating models applied to these data. The models covered in this course are widely used in political science, psychology, economics and sociology. A career in empirical political, social or psychological research requires at least a passing familiarity with them. The nature of these models and data are such that applied researchers often must rely on statistical software, the use of which is also addressed in this course.

Social Network Analysis for Political Science

Political Networks is a graduate short-course in the analysis of political networks. More than just a set of statistical techniques, network analysis is a perspective on the social, political and natural worlds that provides insights by focusing on the inter-relationships of units. In this course we touch on network data collection and management, the formulation of network theory and hypotheses, network description and visualization, as well as methods for the statistical analysis of networks. The material in this course is largely technical, but we continually return to the substantive rationale for our approach. The applications we discuss are drawn primarily from the social sciences, however the approach is relevant to study of network data in any discipline.

Public Opinion

Pubic opinion is a graduate seminar on public opinion. It is designed to expose students to key debates in the literature and prepare them to conduct their own research. It explores the processes by which citizens form attitudes and opinions, how/when opinions change, and the relationship between the public’s preferences and institutional outcomes. It also considers the tools political scientists use to study public opinion, in particular the major considerations involved in the con- struction of surveys (e.g., sampling, measurement, reporting, survey error), as well as the dominant approaches to drawing inferences on opinion formation and change (e.g., experiments, longitudinal data). Substantively, it covers a range of policies, as well as political knowledge, mass communication, and feelings towards government.

Interest Groups & Social Movements

Interest Groups is a graduate seminar on the degree, arenas and methods of interest group influence in modern American politics, though we will also touch on these features in both comparative and historical contexts. We dedicate ample time to understanding the evolution of the interest group population in the US, as well as the variance in interest group coalition behavior and form. Throughout the course, we necessarily engage the adjacent themes of civil society and social movements. Substantively, it covers a range of public policies, all three branches of American government, as well as public opinion, mass communication, and political behavior. Ultimately, the course serves to better our understanding of two major themes in the study of politics: collective action and power. How and why do interest groups form in pursuit of collective goals? And are they successful? That is, do interest groups and social movements succeed in influencing political outcomes?

Voting Behavior / Campaigns & Elections

Voting Behavior is an advanced undergraduate course that concerns the study of elections and political participation. The emphasis is on voting in U.S. presidential elections and the tools political scientists and political psychologists use to study them, especially survey research and (field) experiments. Particular attention will be paid to the most recent presidential elections. Topics to be covered include partisanship, election rules and procedures, voter turnout, campaign organization and strategy, and the effects of campaigns on voters. Because much of the classic and the contemporary research on elections utilizes quantitative methods, students should have some prior exposure to quantitative social scientific analysis.

Data Science for Politics / Political Analysis

Political Analysis is an introductory undergraduate course on the greater research methods enterprise used to make claims about political phenomena. It addresses both qualitative and quantitative approaches, and focuses on the processes of empirical political analysis. Various topics in statistics, including data description, probabilities, significance testing, correlation, and regression analysis, are introduced and applied to questions of social, economic and political relevance. Students will gain insight into theory building, research design and empirical testing that can be applied across disciplines and in various careers.

US Media Politics

Media Politics is an undergraduate lecture course that explores the relationships among the mass media, politicians and the public in America. It considers each of these actors within the context of the others, in order to present a richer understanding of the interaction between media and politics. Various themes in political science and communications are engaged in this course, including: the organization and kinds of media; the process of newsgathering; the shaping of news coverage; the effect of media on public opinion, political participation and voting behavior; and recent developments in the media environment. Substantial time will be allocated to the introduction of data description and research design employed by media scholars. Thus this course will mix conceptual discussions with practical data analysis, giving special attention to models of public opinion, campaign coverage and voting behavior. In doing so, the course encourages students to question the often unsubstantiated and overly simplistic claims about the media. Instead, students are presented with the basic tools to make sophisticated arguments about the complex system in which the media, the public and politicians interact.

Presidential Nomination Campaigns

Presidential Nomination Campaigns is an undergraduate seminar course that concerns the study of U.S. presidential primary elections and caucuses and the tools political scientists use to study them, especially survey research and campaign data. While we will spend some time looking at the history and development of our current system, the bulk of our attention will be paid to modern contests, especially the most recent presidential nomination campaign. In particular, we will explore the factors and events that comprise candidates’ momentum, viability, fundraising, endorsements and success in nomination contests. Though this course focuses on the theories, concepts and events surrounding a particular kind of election, it also explores the greater research methods enterprise used to make claims about these political phenomena.

American Politics in the Era of Polarization

American Politics is an introductory undergraduate lecture course (with discussion sections) that evaluates concerns that the United States is in the midst of a new constitutional crisis. American government is being tested by a polarized political environment, regular mass protests, and a president who has challenged many of the political norms of the past. In this course, we consider the operation, development, and current state of the three branches of government. Then, we'll examine seminal political forces not institutionalized by the U.S. Constitution: political parties, voters, interest groups, and the news media. Finally, we’ll (re)consider the political processes that produced the two seminal documents of the American founding: the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The goal is to give students more than a basic understanding of the U.S. Congress, the presidency, the courts, and other institutions of American government, so students can be more discriminating consumers of political information.

Comic Relief

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