CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Professor Nathaniel Beck

DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Professor Jonathan Nagler

DIRECTOR OF M.A. PROGRAMS:
Associate Professor Shinasi Rama

The Department of Politics offers a Ph.D. program and a stand-alone M.A. program. The Ph.D. program in politics trains researchers for placement in highly competitive institutions of higher learning and in applied settings such as government, international and nongovernmental organizations, and business. The department offers superb research training in a variety of fields and methodologies, but it is particularly well known for comparative politics, international relations, political philosophy and theory, political economy, quantitative methods, and rational-choice approaches to politics.

The M.A. program in politics allows students to study more standard fields of political science and learn basic social science research skills. The program trains students to take positions in applied settings in government, NGOs, and other areas where a strong understanding of politics along with practical knowledge is required.

Faculty

Nathaniel Beck, Professor; Chair, Department of Politics. Ph.D. 1977, M.A. 1969, Yale; B.A. 1967 (mathematics and political science), Rochester.
Political methodology; political economy; conflict and civil war.

Steven J. Brams, Professor. Ph.D. 1966 (political science), Northwestern; B.S. 1962 (economics, politics, and science), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
American politics; international relations; voting and elections; game theory; social choice theory.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Professor; Silver Professor. Ph.D. 1971 (political science), M.A. 1968 (political science), Michigan; B.A. 1967, Queens College (CUNY).
International conflict; political economy of governance.

Jorge Castañeda, Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Caribbean Studies. Ph.D. 1978 (histoire économique), M.A. 1976, Paris I (Panthéon Sorbonne); M.A. 1975, Ecole Pratique de Hautes Etudes (Paris); B.A. 1975, Paris I (Panthéon Sorbonne); B.A. 1973, Princeton.
Latin American politics; comparative politics; U.S.-Latin America relations.

Kanchan Chandra, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (government), Harvard; B.A. 1993 (government), Dartmouth College.
The relationship between ethnic diversity and democratic consolidation; ethnic politics.

Youssef Cohen, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1979, M.A. 1975, Michigan.
Methodology; comparative politics.

David B. H. Denoon, Professor. Ph.D. 1975 (political science), Massachusetts Institute of Technology; M.P.A. 1968 (economics and public policy), Princeton; B.A. 1966 (economics), Harvard.
Comparative politics; international relations; political economy, particularly of Asia; North-South trade and finance; national security.

Eric Dickson, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2003, M.A. 1999, Harvard; M.A. 1997, Princeton; B.S. 1996, California Institute of Technology.
Social science experiments; game theory; evolutionary and behavioral game theory; preference formation; mass political behavior; identity and ethnic politics; political violence.

George W. Downs, Professor; Dean for Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Science. Ph.D. 1976, Michigan; B.A. 1967, Shimer College.
International cooperation; political economy; international institutions.

John A. Ferejohn, Professor, Law. Ph.D. 1972, Stanford; B.A. 1966, San Fernando Valley State College.
Legal interpretation and rational-choice theory.

Shepard Forman, Research Professor; Director, Center on International Cooperation. Ph.D. 1966 (anthropology), Columbia; M.A. 1961 (history), B.A. 1959 (Spanish language and literature), Brandeis.
International affairs; international law and organization; human rights and humanitarian affairs.

Michael J. Gilligan, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1993, Harvard; M.P.A. 1989, Princeton; B.A. 1986, Wisconsin (Madison).
International politics; political economy; international organization.

Sanford Clark Gordon, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 1999, M.A. 1996, Princeton; B.A. 1994, Cornell.
American political institutions; bureaucratic politics; regulation, law, and public policy; political methodology.

Catherine Hafer, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2001 (political science), Rochester; B.S. 1993 (economics), California Institute of Technology.
Game theory; political economy.

Russell Hardin, Professor. Ph.D. 1971 (political science), Massachusetts Institute of Technology; B.A. 1964 (mathematics), Oxford; B.A. 1962 (mathematics), B.S. 1962 (physics), Texas.
Rational choice; collective action; morality behind the law; moral and political philosophy.

Christine B. Harrington, Professor. Ph.D. 1982 (political science, law minor), M.A. 1976 (political science), Wisconsin; B.A. 1974 (political science, history minor), New Mexico.
Politics and ideology of law; legal culture; legal profession and lawyers; dispute processing and litigation; administrative law and regulatory politics; constitutional law and society; law and state formation in American political development.

Anna L. Harvey, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1995 (political science), M.A. 1990 (political science), Princeton; B.A. 1988 (political science), Ohio.
American politics; elections and voting behavior; judicial politics.

Stephen Holmes, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law; Professor, Politics. Ph.D. 1976, M.Phil. 1975, M.A. 1974, Yale.
History of European liberalism; post-communist democratic and economic liberalization.

James C. Hsiung, Professor. Ph.D. 1967 (political science), Columbia; M.A. 1961 (journalism), Southern Illinois; B.A. 1955 (comparative literature), National Taiwan.
Interplay of politics and law in international relations; international governance; IPE; U.S.-China relations; China’s foreign policy; international relations of the Asia Pacific.

Farhad Kazemi, Professor. Ph.D. 1973 (political science), Michigan; M.A. 1968 (Middle East studies), Harvard; M.A. 1966 (political science), George Washington; B.A. 1964 (political science), Colgate.
Comparative and international politics; Middle East politics; civil society.

Dimitri Landa, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2002, Minnesota; B.A. 1994, California State.
Democratic theory; epistemology; political economy.

Michael Laver, Professor. Ph.D. 1981, Liverpool; M.A. 1972 (political behavior), B.A. 1970 (government), Essex.
Parliamentary democracy; government formation; rational choice; party competition; estimating policy position of political actors.

Bernard Manin, Professor. Thèse de doctorat sur travaux (special form of Ph.D.), Habilitation à diriger des recherches 1995 (political science), Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Paris); M.A. 1974 (political science), Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne); Agrégation 1973 (philosophy), Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris).
Democratic theory; the French revolution; contemporary constitutionalism.

Fiona McGillivary, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1995, Rochester; B.A. 1987, Strathclyde.
International political economy; trade politics; international cooperation.

Lawrence M. Mead, Professor. Ph.D. 1973 (political science), M.A. 1968 (political science), Harvard; B.A. 1966 (political science), Amherst College.
American politics; public policy; antipoverty policy; welfare reform; policy analysis.

Christopher Mitchell, Professor. Ph.D. 1971 (political science), B.A. 1966 (government), Harvard.
Comparative politics; international relations; Latin American politics; U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.

Timothy P. Mitchell, Professor, Politics, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. Ph.D. 1984 (politics), Princeton; B.A. 1977 (law and history), Cambridge.
Middle East politics; politics of economic expertise; political ecology.

Rebecca B. Morton, Professor. Ph.D. 1984, Tulane; M.P.A. 1977, B.S. 1976 (social sciences), Louisiana State.
American elections; empirical analysis of formal models; experimental methods.

Jonathan Nagler, Professor. Ph.D. 1989, M.S. 1985, California Institute of Technology; B.A. 1982, Harvard.
American politics; economics and elections; voting behavior; quantitative methods.

Bertell Ollman, Professor. Ph.D. 1967 (political theory), M.A. 1963 (political theory), B.A. 1959 (politics, philosophy, and economics), Oxford; M.A. 1957 (political science), B.A. 1956 (political science), Wisconsin.
Marxism; dialectical method and theory of class consciousness.

Adam Przeworski, Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Politics. Postdoctoral 1967 (sociology), Polish Academy of Sciences; Ph.D. 1966 (political science), Northwestern; M.A. 1961 (philosophy and sociology), Warsaw.
Political economy; democratic theory.

Shinasi Rama, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 2004 (comparative politics/international relations), Columbia; M.A. 1996 (international relations), South Carolina.
International relations theory; comparative politics theory; the state; nationalism; security; Balkan politics.

Richard S. Randall, Professor. Ph.D. 1966 (political science), M.A. 1962, Wisconsin; B.A. 1956 (government), Antioch College.
American constitutional law and development; prescriptive and operating freedoms of speech; theories of tolerance in mass liberal democratic society; censorship and state control.

Peter Rosendorff, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1993, M.Phil. 1989, M.A. 1989, Columbia; B.A. 1986, B.Sc. 1985, Witwatersrand.
International relations; international political economy; formal methods.

Howard Rosenthal, Professor. Ph.D. 1964 (political science), B.S. 1960 (economics, politics, and science), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Voting and coalition theory; political economy of finance; taxation and public goods; American and European politics; political and economic history; political polarization and inequality.

Shanker Satyanath, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 2001, Columbia; M.B.A. 1983, Northwestern; B.A. 1978, Delhi.
Political economy; international relations; formal modeling.

Martin A. Schain, Professor. Ph.D. 1971 (politics), Cornell; B.A. 1961 (politics), New York.
Comparative politics; American politics; European politics; the politics of immigration in Europe and the U.S.; center-periphery relations; the extreme right in Europe.

Alastair Smith, Professor. Ph.D. 1995, Rochester; B.A. 1990, Oxford.
Role of domestic politics in international interactions; international conflict; political economy.

David Stasavage, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1995, Harvard; B.A. 1989, Cornell.
Comparative political economy; monetary policy; link between democratic institutions and economic policy.

Joshua Tucker, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 2000, M.A. 2000, Harvard; M.I.S. 1994, Birmingham; B.A. 1993, Harvard.
Comparative politics with an emphasis on mass politics, including elections and voting, the development of partisan attachment, public opinion formation, and, more recently, political representation and democratization.

Leonard Wantchekon, Professor. Ph.D. 1995 (economics), Northwestern; M.A. 1992 (economics), British Columbia; Baccalauréat série C 1977 (mathematics and physics), Benin.
Comparative politics in Africa; political economy; development.

FACULTY EMERITI

Rita W. Cooley, James T. Crown, Gisbert Flanz, Louis W. Koenig, Joel Larus, H. Mark Roelofs.