Political Science

The course provides students with tools for evaluating policy impact and effectiveness. Students learn about the tradeoffs involved in the design of policies and institutions, and the influence of factors like partisanship, lobbying, and globalization. They also examine the effectiveness of reforms that attempt to improve government efficiency and representation, accelerate transitions to sustainability, and govern rapidly emerging technologies. 

This course addresses the historical depth and most recent cases of terrorism in Europe and in other regions of the world with a combined traditional and critical view. It offers a complete overview of terrorism, the diversity of its direct and indirect use, as well as its most contemporary trends.

The course provides basic knowledge of Chinese political system and political developments after 1978. It analyses several key issues and challenges that characterize contemporary Chinese society such as environmental issues, socio-economic development, and issues related to regional differences and gaps in society. The course also focuses on developments in civil society and the human rights situation. Freedom of expression, the role of the media and digital developments, as well as the emergence of a surveillance society, are also studied. Domestic issues are viewed from a global perspective. The course discusses and analyses China's global ambitions and foreign and security policy.

This course addresses a number of questions on the causes and consequences of terrorism. The course examines terrorism conceptualizations, the role of religion and ideology, participant profiles and recruitment tactics, organization dynamics, government counterterrorism, and other consequences of terrorism. Course topics will address common social science conceptualizations of terrorism; the challenges with conducting research on terrorism; major theoretical explanations for terrorism dynamics; the effectiveness of state counterterrorism activity: and, relevant case studies. The course analyzes such questions as: Are terrorism and terrorist organizations analytically useful categories? Is terrorism an effective tactic? What makes someone travel abroad to join a terrorist organization? What causes organizations to choose different forms of terrorism? When do states support terrorist organizations? When are state counterterrorism activities effective against terrorist organizations? Causality verses correlation, endogeneity, and theoretical logic are also examined. 

This course provides a study of the process of formation and development of social thought in Latin America, from the establishment of nation states to the present day. It analyzes prevailing conceptual frameworks that examine the problems of greatest cultural, economic, political and social significance of Latin America. It looks at the process of evolution in its historical context, analyzing the most representative examples of each stage of its development and discussing their degree of reliability or uncertainty for the diagnosis of political, social, and economic problems of Latin America.

This course considers how colonial legacies and forms of colonial governance persist today. It does so by examining debates within anti-colonial and postcolonial theory about the aftermath of colonialism. In particular, it considers how postcolonial thought articulates conceptions of freedom, justice, the state, and democracy and how these challenge liberal and republican ideas. Moreover, the course considers how postcolonial and anti-colonial thought has influenced the formation of other critical traditions including abolitionist thought, poststructuralism, surveillance studies, and critical border studies. In doing so, critical reflections on colonialism and empire offer new ways to think about state and corporate power, political subjectivity, violence, and borders and migration.