American Politics

GOVT 83.09 (Identical to QSS 30.08)

Misperceptions in Politics: When Do They Matter and Why?

GOVT 83.21 (Identical to QSS 30.03)

Experiments in Politics

Course Description

Note: Depending on the instructor, this course will adopt a different focus. When Prof. Crabtree offers the course, the focus will be on racial and gender discrimination. Prof. Costa will focus on voters' evaluations of politicians. Prof. Nyhan will focus his seminar on misinformation.

GOVT 83.24 (Identical to PBPL 84.04)

Inequality and American Democracy

GOVT 83.28 (IDENTICAL TO PBPL 83.01)

Persuasion and the Policy Process

GOVT 83.29

The Political Nature of the American Judicial System

Course Description: 

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the political nature of the American judicial system.  In examining foundational parts of the political science literature on courts understood as political institutions, the course will focus on the relationship between courts, other political institutions, and the broader society.  The sorts of questions to be asked include:  Are there interests that courts are particularly prone to support?  What factors influence judicial decision-making?  Are judicial decisions influenced by public opinion?  What effects do congressional or executive actions have on court decisions?  What impact do court decisions have?  While the answers will not always be clear, students should complete the course with an awareness of and sensitivity to the political nature of the American judicial system.

GOVT 83.30

Ethnoracial Identities in Politics and Society

This course focuses on understanding ethnoracial identities that may not fit into preexisting ethnoracial categories and the unique quantitative challenges of studying and understanding these groups. The goals of the course are to have a more nuanced understanding of ethnoracial identities beyond existing categories, and how to apply those nuances to quantitative work. The topics we will focus on include: 1) Ambiguities of Whiteness, 2) Ambiguities of Blackness, and 3) Multi-ethnoracial identities. We will study these topics primarily through a quantitative lens. The culminating project will be centered on how to quantitatively study populations when labels do not exist to capture complex identities.