Classes from previous years The syllabi are provided for these courses but not all the class notes or further resources
DPI-413	DPI-413  Challenges of democratization Spring 2010   Examines the key challenges facing democratization in the 21st Century.  Covers such questions as:  I What democratic indices are available, and what do they indicate about worldwide trends in democratization? II What is the role of institutions in democratization, including constitutions, parties, the media, the electoral system, types of executives, and federalism? III What is the impact of political culture and social capital on democracy? The course takes a broadly comparative perspective, looking at both established and emerging democracies from all regions of the world.
DPI-415	DPI-415 Comparative Politics in Global Perspective Spring 2010   This course analyzes the key challenges of comparative politics in global perspective. Topics include alternative theoretical perspectives, comparative methods, and governance indicators; processes of regime transition and state-building; the design of governance institutions; political culture and mass mobilization; and governance performance. Cases are drawn from all regions in the world.
API-414	API414 Citizen Politics Spring 2009 This course provides the analytical knowledge and practical skills to understand patterns of mass activism in democratic politics worldwide, including in established and newer democracies. The course covers the nature of mass belief systems, modes of political activism and protest politics, value change and ideological orientations, electoral behavior, the structure of political alignments, confidence in government, issues of political representation, and the implications of citizen politics for democratic institutions.   The first half reviews the research literature and the second  applies these in projects using cross-national time-series survey datasets, such as the World Values Survey, the Afro-barometer, the Latin-Barometer, the Euro-Barometer, and the European Social Survey. The course provides an introduction to using Stata and/or SPSS for survey analysis.
Gov20	Gov-20 Introduction to Comparative Politics Fall 2005 This FAS course for undergraduates in the Government Department provides an introduction to key theoretical frameworks, concepts, and analytical methods commonly used today in comparative politics. The class focuses upon some of the seminal contemporary works in the field and evaluates them in the light of the arguments of their critics.
API216	API216 Analyzing elections and public opinion Spring 2004 This course provides the core conceptual tools, theoretical insights, and practical skills for analyzing elections, voting behavior, and public opinion. It is designed for careers in public opinion polling and survey research, campaign management, broadcasting and journalism, and as the foundation for policy analysis research.
PPP-185	PPP185 Internet design for democracy Fall 2001 The course for MPA/MPP students focuses on the problem of the democratic divide, and the practical steps and applied techniques that can be used to maximize the democratic potential of the new technology. For enthusiasts, the Internet promises to provide new forms of horizontal and vertical communication that will enrich engagement, deliberation and democracy in the public sphere. But will Internet resources be open to everyone? The central issue generating widespread concern in the emergent Information Age has been indications of a growing ‘digital divide’ between Internet-haves and have-nots.  A global divide has become strikingly evident in the chasm between industrialized and developing societies. A social divide is apparent in the access of rich and poor in each nation, as well as by generation, race and gender. And within the online community, a democratic divide is emerging between those who do, and do not, use Internet resources to engage, mobilize, and participate in public life. This courses focuses on understanding these issues and what can be done in practice via the Net to promote opportunities for effective civic engagement and democratic policymaking.
PPP-412	PPP-412 Political Communication in Comparative Perspective Globalization and new technologies are rapidly transforming the process of political communications around the world. The end of the Television Age and the rise of the Internet Era raises many issues: are newspapers and television as we know them in terminal decline, as some expect, or will the Internet just supplement, not replace, the old media? Are parties and elections being transformed by new forms of campaign communications? What are the effects of newspapers, television, the Net and party campaigns on civic engagement? Are the new communication technologies producing a ‘globalization’ or ‘Americanization’ of popular culture, or a more complex localization and fragmentation of media outlets and local identities? And what are the consequences of all these developments for the process of governance in a wired world? This course provides new insights and practical analysis to understand these issues focusing on recent developments in the structure, contents and impact of political communications in many countries around the world. A wide range of post-industrial and developing countries are compared, including the United States. Your policy analysis report focuses on one of issues covered in the course in the country(s)/region of your choice.