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Political Theory
700X Methodology: Statistical Concepts in Political Science
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Application of probability theory and inferential statistics in political science. Use of statistical techniques in such areas as public opinion, voting and legislative behavior, comparative politics. Quantitative applications on class stratification, labor/race census data, union demographics, contact models. SPSS applications.
701X Ancient and Medieval Political Thought
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Analytical and historical examination of principal political thinkers from Plato through Machiavelli. Topics to be considered include: the role of virtue and political participation; classical theories of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy; the Christian critique of ancient politics; the breakdown of the Christian worldview; the rise of modernity. Theorists may include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Al-Farabi, Maimonides, and Machiavelli.
702X Modern Political Thought
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Analytical and historical examination of principal political thinkers from the sixteenth century through the nineteenth century. Topics to be considered include: the rise of liberalism and radical democratic theory; the conservative critique of revolutionary politics; the idea of rights and toleration; the rise of capitalism and Marxist criticism; the impact of Nietzsche. Theorists may include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Smith, Tocqueville, Marx, and Nietzsche.
703X American Political Thought
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
An introduction to the development and evolution of American political ideas and what they mean for America. Topics to be covered include: revolution and constitutionalism; capitalism, liberty and equality; social Darwinism and industrial capitalism; social democracy and neo-conservatism; feminism, racism, and multiculturalism.
704X Counter-Revolution
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Studies the origins and nature of counterrevolutionary thinking and politics. Focuses on counterrevolutionary hostility to progressive politics--whether liberal, democratic, or revolutionary. Examines the role of counterrevolutionary arguments in contemporary American politics.
705X Fear in Politics
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Examines the role of fear in politics. Readings from political theory (e.g., Hobbes, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Arendt, Focault), literature (e.g., Brecht, Solzhenitsyn, Kafka), and history. Focus on relationship between fear and the state, civil society, the workplace, and other private spheres. Case studies from the United States, Latin America, Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany.
710X Twentieth-Century Political Thought
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Examination of leading schools of political thought in the twentieth century, including Marxism, liberalism, democratic theory, feminism, and post-structuralism. Particular focus on the nature of the state; the status and definition of rights; the tension between participation and individualism; the nature of class power and gender relations; the problems of imperialism and pos-colonialism.
713G Methodology: Theory and Methodology in Political Science
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Selective approach to problems of theory and methodology in the study of government and politics. Alternative patterns of analysis of political behavior. Research findings and methods of other social sciences.
714X Theory of Anti-Capitalist Movements
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Various theories of socialism and communism. Marx and the Marxists. Non-Marxist socialist thought. The course will examine the relationship between changing theoretical doctrines and political movements. Possible topics to be discussed include: the genesis of worker consciousness; the role of internal democracy in mass movements; the state of anti-capitalist thinking and movements today.
715X Organization Theory
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Theories of organization. Problems regarding public organizations. Concepts of authority, hierarchy, status, leadership.
716X Methodology: Empirical Political Science
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Uses of quantitative methods in political research. Methodological problems of such techniques as factor analysis, experimental and interview design, survey research and content analysis, probability theory, simulation, and game theory. Implications for theory building in political science. Prerequisite: an undergraduate course in statistics.
717X Master's Seminar
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
A guided research experience designed to allow students to conceptualize, organize, and complete a major policy paper. Class sessions will focus on problem identification and issues involving policy analysis. Students will be required to identify a policy problem, choose an applicable model for evaluating the problem, and complete a thirty- to forty-page policy paper containing a series of policy recommendations. Labor topics and labor-oriented policy analysis will be encouraged. Students will submit various pieces of the project according to a prearranged schedule. The class will be organized as a workshop to provide systematic feedback and direction of the various papers.
Prerequisite or corequisite: completion of 24 credits with a B average.
718X Ethics and Politics
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Ethical issues as they arise within the context of government and politics with the aim of improving students' ability to think ethically about the means and ends of public policy and the behavior of public officials. Such topics as the following will be addressed: the use of deception in public life; the use of citizens as a means to governmental policy and the moral accountability of individual public officials; whistle-blowing; and the ethical components in assessing such objectives of government as: distributive justice, equal opportunity, and nuclear deterrence.
719.1X Selected Topics in Political Theory
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Topic varies from term to term. Students may take this course four times, but may not repeat topics. (Not open to students who have completed the same topic in Political Science 719.2X, 719.3X, or 719.4X.) American government
720X U.S. Constitutional Law I
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits Relation of the judicial process and constitutional law to the political process in the United States. Judicial review; federalism. Separation and delegation of powers.
721X U.S. Constitutional Law II
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Civil liberties; civil rights; due process; equal protection of the laws.
722X Criminal Justice and Public Policy
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
An analysis will be made of criminal justice decision making and crime policy by exploring contemporary empirical research. Institutions covered will include the police department, bar associations, the courts, and correction agencies. Crime control strategies to be analyzed include: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, decriminalization, diversion, and fortressing. Specific examples of actual or proposed policies to be studied are reduction of plea bargaining, mandatory imprisonment, elimination of parole, saturation policing, and capital punishment.
724G Computer Applications in Political Science
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Current use and potential applications of computers in political science. Emphasis on urban problems.
730X U.S. Party System
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The nature and function of U.S. political parties and interest groups and their growth and decline; the electoral process, organization and leadership, decision making; labor in the two-party system; labor and working-class electoral tendencies; labor and independent politics.
731X Policy Formulation in U.S. Government
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The changing nature of federalism and of the separation of powers as related to major problems facing the United States.
732X The Presidency in the United States
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The presidency as an office of national and international leadership.
733X The Legislative Process in the United States
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The function of Congress and state legislatures. Bases of representation. Internal politics. Procedures. Interest groups. Controls.
734X Policy Analysis
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Current problems, prospects, and projections of policy analysis in education, health, poverty, welfare, planning, urban renewal, police and law enforcement, and metropolitanization.
735X Politics and Public Opinion Formation
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The role of public opinion in different political systems. Formation of opinion. Political socialization; interest and pressure groups. Leaders and political behavior. Mass communications media.
736X The Politics of the American Labor Movement
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The influence that trade unions have in the political process (elections, parties, the legislature, and the courts) and the importance of state intervention to union organization and political power. Leading theories on union goals and relationship to the political system will be analyzed. Also covered will be specific policy objectives pursued by unions: e.g., health, safety, and welfare policies; employment security and labor relations policies; affirmative action and economic restructuring policies.
737X Policy Evaluation
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The nature, purposes, and methodology of policy evaluation. The relationship between policy evaluation and policy analysis. Description and differentiation of summative, goal-free, utilization-focused, formative, and cost-effectiveness evaluation. Analysis of various kinds of experimental, quasi- experimental, reflexive, process, and cost-effectiveness research designs for policy evaluation. Diagnosis of validity problems associated with each design.
740X Public Administration
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Theories and practice of public administration. The political context of public service. Policy implementation. Organizational design. Management techniques. Budgeting. Personnel administration. Evaluation. Union administration and management, mentor servicing, labor law, public sector collective bargaining. Labor unions and local, state, and federal administrative processes.
745G Fieldwork
3 credits
Students spend eight to ten hours a week in a government agency and attend weekly seminars dealing with problems raised in the fieldwork assignment. The seminar is supervised jointly by a city administrative officer and Brooklyn College staff member. Students write a paper on a specific problem in an administrative agency.
747X Metropolitan Areas and Community Power
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The urban power structure and the metropolitan complex. Regional planning for land use and transportation. Adjustment of government services to the metropolitan, social, and economic community. Political, fiscal, administrative, legal, constitutional problems. Changes in inter-government relations. Labor and trade union power, labor-community coalitions, metro-unionism.
771.2X¬771.6X Political Systems in Developing Areas: Regional Analysis
30 hours plus conference each term; 3 credits each term
Political modernization of developing areas. Process of transition from traditionalism to modernism. Developing political institutions and changing political processes in specific regions.
771.2X The Far East
771.3X The Middle East
771.6X Latin America
772X Comparative Politics
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Introduction to the nature and methodology of comparative political research. Comparative study of governments from each world region. Cross-national analysis of major dimensions of the political processes, political structures, and state activities in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Examination of the major themes of comparative politics such as democratization, nation building, ethnic conflicts, and social movements.
773X Post-communist Politics
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Examination of the history and politics of the post-communist societies of Eastern Europe and Central Eurasia. Analysis of the major puzzles of the region: democratization, the state and revolution, class and poverty, nation-building and disintegration, gender, and globalization.
774X The Military and Police in Politics
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The roles, influences, and power of military, police, and other security forces in the politics of countries around the world. Patterns in national and international policies on crime, terrorism, and military issues.
776X Comparative Public Administration
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Comparative analysis of different bureaucratic structures and processes in industrialized and developing areas of the world.
777X Violence and Politics
3 hours; 3 credits
Examination of violence in the politics of each world region. Study of civil war, political conflict, civil strife, economic protest, identity-based discrimination, violent crime, vigilantism, and other forms of violence in the development of countries and their current conditions.
778X Political Development
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
The concept of development as a framework for the study of politics. Basic political concepts common to developing or Third World political systems and highly developed or technologically advanced political systems. Aspects of the process of development. Characteristic problems of societies at various stages of development. Patterns of interaction between developing and industrially advanced societies. Impact of these relationships on world politics.
779X Postindustrial Politics and the State
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Examination of the nature, structure, and role of the modern state in diverse advanced, industrial settings. Political, economic, and social forces impinging on the state and its capability to respond to these challenges, demands, and expectations.
780X Modern South Africa
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Analysis of major political, economic, and social developments in the Republic of South Africa since 1948. Against the backdrop of South Africa's recent history, topics examined include the system of apartheid, White rule and Black challenge, the South African economy, South Africa and the wider world, the Nelson Mandela era, and U.S. ¬South African interests and policies. This course is the same as Africana Studies 780X.
789.1X Selected Topics in Comparative Politics
30 hours plus conference; 3 credits
Topics vary from term to term. Students may take this course four times, but may not repeat topics. (Not open to students who have completed the same topic in Political Science 789.2X, 789.3X, or 789.4X.)
Research Courses
791G Thesis Research
Hours to be arranged; 3 credits
Research for master's thesis supervised by a faculty member. Credit is not earned until the thesis is accepted. Students register for this course only once, and must complete the thesis within two semesters.
792G Internship/Thesis
3 credits Assignment to a nonprofit or governmental agency. Joint supervision by a faculty member and a member of the agency. This course requires students to write a master's thesis based on internship work. The thesis must be approved by the graduate deputy chairperson. The following courses are inactive and will be offered only if there is sufficient demand:
723X Survey Research
742X Law and the Behavioral Sciences
744X Government and Defense
771.4, 771.5X Political Systems in Developing Areas: Regional Analysis
771.4X Africa, South of the Sahara
771.5X North Africa