CURRICULUM OF THE POLITICAL SCIENCE PhD PROGRAM
FOR THE 2011/2012 ACADEMIC YEAR
Please note that curricula posted here applies to students of the Political Science Department, i.e. the tracks of Comparative Politics, Political Theory, and Political Economy. The curricula of the International Relations and Public Policy tracks is not available here, but on the website of the Doctoral School of Political Science, International Relations, and Public Policy.
Last update: December 8, 2011 14:08
Courses running across two semesters
Departmental Doctoral Seminar - Various Faculty (0 credit mandatory course for Probationary Candidates in all tracks)
This seminar involves both first year doctoral students and doctoral candidates who already passed their comprehensive examination. With the regular participation of resident and visiting lecturers working in the respective field, the seminars discuss draft dissertation chapters, draft dissertation proposals and other relevant scholarly works prepared by the doctoral students.
Research Methods and Design – Erin Jenne (4 credits mandatory course) [all tracks]
This course is designed for students who are beginning their dissertation projects. The aim of the course is to give students the tools to conceptualize their theses in terms of research questions and design, methodology, data collection and qualitative analysis. In doing so, this course focuses more narrowly on the issues, problems, and strategies related to “small-N” qualitative research, for the most part setting aside the techniques of large-N statistical analysis, which are best taught in a separate course. Students will read and discuss texts related to theory formation and hypothesis testing; creating proxies and measurement; descriptive and causal inference; longitudinal, comparative and case study research; field data collection; working with texts and analyzing qualitative data; and, finally, dissertation write-up. Throughout the course, we will not avoid issues of epistemology—how we know what we know and how to adjudicate competing “truth” claims. However, since this course is intended as a practicum for conducting “normal” social science, we will set aside or bracket many of the epistemological and ontological debates in order to learn techniques for researching and analyzing social phenomena on a practical level. This course is divided into four main parts focusing on the following topics: (1) the goals of social science and elements of research design; (2) selection and application of different methodologies for conducting research; (3) collection of primary and secondary data on the field; and (4) analysis and synthesis of qualitative data in the dissertation-writing process.
Democratic Theory - Tamas Meszerics and Janos Kis (4 credits) [Political Theory track core course]
This is an advanced course in the normative theory of democracy. There are two types of normative democratic theory. The first identifies the virtues of democracy with its capacity better to promote some independent aims (such advancing collective well-being, securing justice, protecting human rights, or simply maintaining a peaceful and orderly succession in office). The second starts out from the proposition that democracy as a procedure of taking and carrying out collective decisions has some inherent moral virtue. The course will consider both types of arguments. We will also examine certain alleged paradoxes of democracy, e.g. the paradox of voting, the paradox of recognizing the authority of mistaken official decisions, and the paradox of constitutional review as an anti-majoritarian device.
Themes in Constitutional Theory: Constituent Power between Facticity, Validity and Legitimacy – Nenad Dimitrijevic (4 credits) [Political Theory track core course]
This is a course at the intersection of constitutional and political theory. Its central question concerns the conditions of legitimacy of constitutional democracy. We will ask the legitimacy question from a particular perspective – that of the (ir)relevance of the source and the original authorship of the legal and political order. Who makes the first rule, on the basis of what authorization, when and how? Does it matter at all, for us who care about democratic legitimacy?
Political Institutions in Comparative Perspective – Zsolt Enyedi (4 credits) [Comparative Politics track core course]
This is a course on the fundamental political institutions of modern, primarily democratic, societies. The principal aim of the course is to familiarize students with cutting-edge research on the development and consequences of political institutions, and to discuss the normative and empirical regime-alternatives. The course will discuss the principal theoretical frameworks of comparative government; analyze the ways how institutions constrain behavior, both mechanically and psychologically, and how they endow actors with resources; and help students to conduct comparative analysis, with a strong awareness of the methodological opportunities and dangers involved in such an exercise. The course centers on the institutions related to preference aggregation and government building, and will treat institutions involved in policy making and implementation only marginally.
Political Sociology – Andras Bozoki (4 credits) [Comparative Politics track core course]
This is a doctoral seminar building on the comparative politics and political theory MA courses. Basic questions in political sociology mostly focus on the holders of power and the way power is exercised in a society. In this seminar, sociological analysis is applied to the political field, and attention is paid to social determinants and sources of political power, state formation, theories of the state, civil society, and social movements. Beyond these topics the seminar offers an overview in classic and recent theories of elites and classes with emphasis on New Class and edifferent positional and reputational elite groups (politicians, intellectuals, cultural elites). The relationship between political transformation and elite change, between current forms of globalization and the global justice movements will also be discussed, just as the structure vs agency debate.
IPE: States, Classes, and Industries in the International Political Economy – Bela Greskovits (4 credits) [Political Economy track core course]
The focus of this course (core for IR track PhD, elective for MA students) is the pattern of alliance and conflict among social forces that shape responses to domestic and international economic challenges: trade, debt, recession, and globalization. We shall explore the links between the character of these societal actors and the dynamics and paths of economic and political development. Students will be acquainted with various schools of social interest-based – that is, class, and sectoral (or industry-group) – approaches to politics and policy making. The studied concepts include the political importance of production factor endowments, the domestic and world political impact of industry life cycles, and the significance of capital mobility across industries or national borders, in politics and policy making. We shall also study varied concepts of the relationship between power and spatial differentiation/integration in the world economy. The questions we shall discuss include the following. Why do owners of capital, labor, and land, often clash over issues of liberal versus protectionist trade policies? What explains that in other cases the opposing forces put their conflicts aside, and ally in protectionist or free-trading coalitions? Under which conditions will particular sectors (or class-fractions) of business enter with workers in multi-class alliances against fellow businessmen or landlords? How can various properties of the national economy (e.g. whether it is abundantly or poorly endowed with physical and human capital, skilled or unskilled labor, or natural resources,) affect the prospects for conflict or cooperation in responding to world market challenges? How does it matter for development and state capacity whether the leading sector (that is the main activity) of the economy is characterized by small versus big firms, local versus foreign private capital, state enterprises, or unorganized versus unionized labor?
Comparative Political Economy – Anil Duman (4 credits) [Political Economy track core course]
This class provides an overview of current developments in comparative political economy. Readings cover the developed and developing regions of the world, material written by political scientists, economists, and historians, and a broad swath of topics with robust, contemporary research programs. Instead of a country-by-country approach, the course focuses on key theories, arguments, and issues in the field of political economy. The course is designed less to provide a broad overview of thinking on the relationship between government and economics than to explore the areas of comparative political economy that have seen interesting developments in the last twenty or so years. In that sense, the course is a complement to other comparative and political economy courses the department offers
Reading Seminar on Ronald Dworkin's Justice for Hedgehogs – Janos Kis (2 credits) [Political Theory track core course]
This class provides an overview of current developments in comparative political economy. Readings cover the developed and developing regions of the world, material written by political scientists, economists, and historians, and a broad swath of topics with robust, contemporary research programs. Instead of a country-by-country approach, the course focuses on key theories, arguments, and issues in the field of political economy. The course is designed less to provide a broad overview of thinking on the relationship between government and economics than to explore the areas of comparative political economy that have seen interesting developments in the last twenty or so years. In that sense, the course is a complement to other comparative and political economy courses the department offers
Survey Methodology - Tamas Rudas (2 credits) [Research Methods track elective course]
Most of the empirical work in political science relies on survey data. This class discusses the fundamental elements of survey design. An understanding of these concepts is necessary not only for those who want to engage in own data collection, but also for those who want to properly analyze data collected by other researchers. The main topics include sampling, questionnaire design, validity and reliability of the survey, optimal allocation of resources in conducting surveys.
Bayesian Statistics - Tamas Rudas (2 credits) [Research Methods track elective course]
Bayesian statistics has gained considerable popularity recently. Some consider its applications in the social sciences cutting edge, others criticize them strongly. The course will present the fundamental ideas and concepts of Bayesian statistical analysis and will compare them to more traditional statistical methods. Participants will be encouraged to read published Bayesian analyses in political science and during the second half of the course these analyses will be discussed and an attempt will be made to reproduce them.
Political Psychology – Levente Littvay (2 credits) [Research Methods elective course]
This PhD level course on political psychology offers a survey of the topics prevalent in political psychology today. With a focus on the cutting edge the course consists of discussions of recent articles representative of the field. It covers topics such as leadership and psychoanalysis of political leaders; psychology of survey response; personality and politics; social psychology and in‑group, out‑group dynamics with regards to prejudice, racism, political identity and ethnic conflict; psychology of war and terrorism; political cooperation, risk and conflict; emotions and politics with a special emphasis on fear; political cognition, neuroscience; and genetics of political behavior. The course concludes early at the weekend of November 25-27 with the Political Psychology Networking Conference for the Post‑Communist Region. Final paper proposals will be presented at the conference. Attendance at the conference and its workshop on behavior genetics is mandatory. Workload for the class consists of about five article length papers per week, eight 600‑word reaction papers, a preliminary written research proposal, a finalized research proposal in presentation form at the conference and a final research paper due late December. Students are welcome independent of their specialization within the PhD program. The course is available for audit. Auditors will have to do all assigned work (including the proposals) but will not have to write a final paper.
Prospectus Seminar – Gabor Toka (2 credits mandatory course) [all tracks]
The objective of this seminar is to help students in preparing their PhD dissertation proposals and think through issues of research strategy, planning and methodology in that context. Therefore the course is structured around the research interests of the probationary doctoral student cohort, who present their draft prospectus twice in the course of this class, work together in identifying key issues in developing viable research plans, and revise their prospectus drafts to reflect any feedback and insight gained in this process.
Political Authority and Obligation - Janos Kis (4 credits) [Political Theory track core course]
States claim to have a right to issue binding directives to those within their jurisdiction. This claim entails that the addressees have a moral obligation to obey those directives provided certain conditions obtain. The obligation to obey is said to be defeasible but general: it is said to hold with regard to (almost) all directives, (almost) all subjects, on (almost) all occasions. This is the claim of political obligation. It needs to be justified. Can a justification be given to it? Anarchists and classical Marxists answer the question in the negative. Liberals, traditionally, defend a positive answer for a subclass of states (constitutionally limited democracies). The traditional justifications are, typically, voluntaristic in the following sense: they assume that for a person to be politically obligated, s/he must perform an act that counts as undertaking an obligation (consent, acceptance of benefits from a cooperative scheme, etc.), and that act must be performed voluntarily (acts performed under coercion, manipulation, duress, or hypnosis, for example, are not obligation-generating). However, in the last couple of decades, an increasing number of liberal philosophers came to adopt a skeptical view on the possibility of justifying political obligation. In an attempt to meet the skeptical objection, a number of contemporary authors try build the justification of political obligation on some moral duty that applies to the subjects independently of whether any voluntary act of undertaking an obligation is performed by them (associative duties, natural duties of justice, etc.). This course will examine the direction in which the justification was traditionally sought and the reasons why this direction has been taken, the skeptical arguments against the traditional strategies, and the more recent attempts at meeting those arguments.
Applied Political Theory: Political Theory and Public Policy – Zoltan Miklosi (2 credits) [Political Theory track core course]
The course is organized to discuss selected issues in public policy from the perspective of normative considerations of justice. More specifically, it will explore the implications of liberal egalitarianism, now the dominant outlook within academic political theory, for a number of policy problems that have attracted significant public attention in recent decades. The choice of policy problems will be guided either by their centrality from the point of view of the overall justness of society, such as healthcare or education, or by the special nature of the theoretical challenges they represent, such as genetic testing and intervention, environmental and intergenerational justice etc. Liberal egalitarianism has been developed into a number of distinct and well-specified rival versions over the last three decades, and its internal controversies may occasionally have important consequences for the policies different versions recommend, but all versions share a couple of central commitments that significantly constrain the range of policies that they may regard as acceptable from the point of view of justice. All of them are committed to some variation of the following ideas: that 1) every individual should have the opportunity to develop and realize her own conception of the good life, that 2) the state should be neutral regarding these conceptions, that 3) from the point of view of the government the success of each individual life is equally important, and 4) that as far as the distribution of the resources necessary for the realization of different life plans are concerned, no one should be disadvantaged by such unchosen circumstances that are beyond their control. The course will mainly be occupied with the policy implications of these general commitments. The range of questions to be discussed will include the following: Does health have special moral significance? When are health inequalities unjust? How healthcare resources ought to be allocated under circumstances of resource constraint? Is it permissible to take into consideration the age or quality of life of the potential recipients of such resources, and if so, why? What does educational equality mean? Is it compatible with school choice? To what extent and for what purposes is it permissible to take differential native talent into consideration in distributing educational resources? Under what conditions and for what reasons is genetic selection and genetic enhancement morally permissible? Do we have duties of justice for future generations?
Advanced Topics: Global Economic Inequalities – Thomas Fetzer (2 credits) [Political Economy track core course]
Does globalization reduce income and wealth inequalities? Or does it make the rich richer and the poor still poorer? In this course, we will examine long-term trends in global economic inequalities between and within countries, and we will engage with the most important controversies about the measurement and interpretation of inequality. In the first part of the course, major theoretical approaches to global inequality will be introduced and will be discussed against the backdrop of macro-level aggregate data. In the second part, we ‘zoom in’ to consider the inequality effects of trade, cross-border capital movements and international migration.
Political Dynamics: Comparative Regime Change – Carsten Schneider (4 credits) [Comparative Politics track core course]
This course is designed to give a broad overview of the literature on the processes of political regime transition in the late 20 th and early 21 st century and the increasing scholarly attention to conceptualizing and explaining hybrid regimes and the qualities of democracy. The topic of this course will be dealt with from a global perspective. We will thus attempt to capture cases and evidence from different world regions. More generally, we will approach the topic of regime changes from the empirical-analytic research tradition.
The Politics of Post-Industrial Democracies – Herbert Kitschelt (2 credits) [Comparative Politics track core course]
The course will focus on political interest mobilization in postindustrial democracies, broadly conceived. That should also include the EU integrated parts of the postcommunist world. Each day is configured around an analytical subject of general interest to students of comparative politics, but with data primarily, but not exclusively, from advanced industrial democracies.
The Future of Democracy in Europe and of Europe – Philippe Schmitter (2 credits) [Comparative Politics track core course]
This seminar will examine critically a number of recent articles and books (most of them by myself) that attempt to analyze trends in "real-existing democracy" at both the national and the supra-national level in Europe. One effort will be to project forward for the next twenty years trajectories established from 1970 to 2000; another will trace the development of various "revolutions"in the practice of democracy at the national level. When it comes to the European Union, we will contrast conflicting opinions concerning its so-called "democracy deficit". In both cases, we shall also discuss various proposals for reform that have been advanced to improve the quality of democracy in this part of the world.
The New Political Economy of Development – Laszlo Csaba (4 credits) [Political Economy track core course]
This Ph.D course aims to build a bridge across the social science disciplines, currently compartmentalized into competing subfileds to the detriment of each. We aim to understand how economic theories and economic development interact. Thus we analyze the basic issues as they evolved in the past three decades of developmental theorizing and confront those ideas with conflictual policy realities in a number of fields and regions. The aim of the course is to provide a broad base for intellectuals and policy analysts alike for understanding competing theories and their implications for decision-making. The focus of the course is non-region specific, and the bulk of the subjects are functional, while experiences in areas where allegedly all theories founder, such as China, the financial crises and chronic poverty are analyzed in depth on the base of cutting edge literature. While background in economics is certainly a plus, it is by no means a precondition to take this course, as most of the literature is non-technical in nature.
Advanced Methods: Set-Theoretic Methods in Social Sciences – Carsten Schneider (2 credits) [Research Methods elective course]
This is an advanced methodologcial course on set-theoretic methods in the social sciences. While the spectrum of a set-theoretic methods is broad, includeing techniques such as Mill's methods or typological theory, this course primarily focusses on the crisp-set and fuzzy-set versions of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Invented by Charles Ragin (1987), this technique has undergone various modifications, improvements, and ramifications (Ragin 2000, 2008). It currently receives increasing interest (and scepticism) in the broader social scientific community, both from its more qualitative and its more quantitative side. This course aims at enabling students to produce a publishable QCA of their own. In order to achieve this, this course provides both the mathematical and (set) theoretical underpinnings of QCA and the technical and research practical skills necessary for performing a QCA. Students will learn to perform QCA using all four of the available software packages for set-theoretic analysis: fsQCA 2.5, Tosmana, Stata, and R.
Experimental Design, Methods, and Analysis – Levente Littvay (2 credits) [Research Methods elective course]
Experimental methodologies have been the foundation of empirical research in the past century but within the social sciences (hold psychology) they received little mainstream attention until the past decade. In 2002 Daniel Kahneman, Vernon L. Smith received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for their experimental work elevating a fringe approach to mainstream status. Since then, extensive attention has been devoted to experimental research within the social sciences, including political science, which lead to numerous prestigious political science publications of experimental work and the recent (2010) establishment of Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association. The purpose of this class is to build a solid foundation for anyone who wishes to utilize experimental methods in their own research with an emphasis on research design and analysis of experimental data. In addition to classic experimental methodological issues we aim to understand the similarities and differences between experimental and observational studies, focus on optimization to minimize research costs and cover modern challenges associated with experimental social scientific research.
Qualitative Methods - Discourse Analysis – Lea Sgier (2 credits) [Research Methods elective course]
This course aims to introduce the students to social science discourse analysis, i.e. to a family of approaches that emphasise the constructed nature of politics and the importance of struggles over interpretive and definitory hegemony for political processes and for the definition of political “realities”. The course starts with an introduction to interpretive social science, the broader research tradition in which discourse analysis can be located. We then continue with two sessions that discuss the nature of discourse and its social and political functions. The following sessions are devoted to some key themes in political discourse analysis, before we move on the actual analytical process. By the end of the course, the participants should have gained an understanding of the importance of language in politics and of discourse analysis as a conceptual and methodological approach. Through practical work in- and outside of the classroom, they should also have acquired a set of practical skills enabling them to use discourse analysis for their own purposes, and to find their way through the vast literature in discourse theory and analysis.
Crosslisted Courses:
SPPIA: The Changing World of International Democracy Support - Tom Carothers (2 credits)
TBA