Curriculum

POL 201 is a general survey of the constitutional bases, organization, and functioning of the American national government; recent and current trends.

GPSV 301 examines American political ideas from colonial times to the present.

GPSV 302 provides students with an advanced study and analysis into the dynamics of American political institutions, including Congress, the presidency, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and political parties. Students will analyze the cultural and constitutional foundations of American politics; institutional structures; and the role of public opinion, political participation, elections, interest groups, and the media in American politics.  Course assignments are designed to help students improve their reading, writing, analytical, and critical thinking skills while mastering course content.

GPSV 313 covers the structure, function, and processes of the Judicial branch of American government.

INTV 314 covers decision-making structures, processes, and outcomes relevant to American security policy; comparison with major foreign powers.

GPSV 498 is a culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that includes an engagement experience and demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies. Senior standing required.

GPSV 311 examines political dynamics of the executive office and its relationship to the other branches of government within the American political system.

Students in GPSV 321 conduct an examination and analysis of local decision-making structures and their policy outputs.

GPSV 421 - Congress and American Politics.

GPSV 433 examines of the manner in which attitudes about politics and political problems are acquired from exposure to music and television, and the manner in which such attitudes lead to political action.

GPSV 341 provides a basic acquaintance with the United Nations and other major international organizations. One of the fundamental trends in the present and future world is the increasing and ever more complex interdependence between nations. To cope with that, conventional unilateral and bilateral means are insufficient. Multilateral approach - cooperative and competitive simultaneously - proves indispensable.

Students in GPSV 441 will conduct an analysis of American Foreign Policy from the Cold War to the present; Congressional-Executive clashes over foreign policy control; approaches to policy analysis. This is a writing emphasis course.

GPSV 444 conducts an examination of the causes and consequences of 20th-century revolutions and the revolutionary process, with emphasis on contemporary events.

GPSV 445 provides a description and analysis of Mexico's political economy, its political system, and its foreign policy, with emphasis on Mexican-U.S. relations.

GPSV 446 describes and analyzes the Mexican-United States Borderlands emphasizing several elements of the Borderlands culture, society, economy, and policy, as well as the evolution of borderlands in comparative perspective.

GPSV 496 conducts a survey and analysis of the leading political and economic issues of interest in various world regions. Specific regions and topics will depend on student need and interest, and the research/teaching interests of the participating faculty member.

INTV 442 covers the international state system; legal-political problems, including territory, environment, seas.

INTV 443 will survey the many issues surrounding the management and resolution of international and domestic conflicts.

INTV 471 provides an overview of the role of intelligence in the formulation and execution of US national security policy. Will include a detailed look at challenges facing both the analysis of intelligence information and the introduction of that analysis into the national security policy process. Will also entail close reading and discussion of selected declassified intelligence documents.

INTV 472 is intended to provide students with a framework for understanding how the United States came to have the intelligence system that it possesses today. After briefly developing a concept of the basic functions of intelligence (the organized collection and analysis of information and conduct of covert action that support the formulation and execution of US national security policy) the course will look at the evolution of US intelligence activity as it increasingly embodied those functions. The largely chronological approach will begin with early intelligence organization during the Revolutionary War, then proceed through halting developmental steps during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It will finally look at the major organizational expansion of intelligence activity from the 1940s onward. An overarching theme will be the linkage between the growth of intelligence organizations and the growing need for information by US policymakers increasingly involved in the international environment. Each class meeting will include lecture and discussion. Particularly in covering 20th century developments, the course will involve reading of declassified intelligence documents.

INTV 473 is intended to familiarize students with the basic purposes and nature of US covert action and to help them understand its historical development. More fundamentally, the course will seek to illustrate both covert actions' potential utility and its inherent limitations and challenges; challenges that in some respects have intensified with the rise of non-state actors, the information revolution, and other aspects of the post-Cold War environment. Finally, the course will draw implications for the role of covert action against current national security challenges, especially global terror networks.

INTV 473 is intended to familiarize students with the basic purposes and nature of US covert action and to help them understand its historical development. More fundamentally, the course will seek to illustrate both covert actions' potential utility and its inherent limitations and challenges; challenges that in some respects have intensified with the rise of non-state actors, the information revolution, and other aspects of the post-Cold War environment. Finally, the course will draw implications for the role of covert action against current national security challenges, especially global terror networks.

GPSV 365 examines the enduring tensions between social control and individual freedoms through analysis of the moral issues involved in administering justice in society.  Students will examine the nature of human rights and the rule of law, as well as the interrelationship between criminal and civil law in American society.  Students will explore the ways in which public and private institutions, including legislatures, courts, law enforcement agencies, and community service organizations, affect the balance between the exercise of individual rights and the interests of the community.

GPSV 388 is an analysis of constitutional, legal, historical and political consequences of U.S. immigration and refugee policy.  Recent trends.  Foreign and domestic policy effects of migration.

GPSV 461 conducts an analysis of the constitutional guarantees of civil liberties in the U.S. Constitution.

GPSV 462 covers the development and analysis of constitutional law of the U.S.; problems of distribution of powers.

GPSV 463 covers the legal status of women in America, including constitutional protections, marriage and family relationships, educational and vocational opportunities, political rights, criminal law.

GPSV 301 examines American political ideas from colonial times to the present.

GPSV 332 covers western political theory from the Utilitarians through the 1930s.

Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of training and practice in actual service in a technical, business, or governmental establishment.

Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work.

Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of instruction and practice in actual service in a department, program, or discipline. Teaching formats may include seminars, in-depth studies, laboratory work and patient study.

An honors thesis is required of all the students graduating with honors. Students ordinarily sign up for this course as a two-semester sequence. The first semester the student performs research under the supervision of a faculty member; the second semester the student writes an honors thesis.