Fall 2026 Courses

Below are all the courses scheduled for the Fall 2026 semester broken down by subfield. If you'd like to read the full description of the class, you can search the course number (POLSCI XXXX) in Workday. For information on introductory and independent study courses, you can also consult Workday or the Office of the Registrar's search tool. The listing will be updated as new courses are approved. If a course does not show up in Workday or the search tool, they are in the process of being approved. Check back later to confirm. If you have any questions, you can speak with your advisor or email the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dan Butler.

Course Highlights

POLSCI 3286-01 - Topics in Public Policy: The Global Politics of Climate Change

Faculty - Victoria Shen

Climate change is arguably the most consequential global challenge of the twenty-first century—reshaping weather extremes, sea levels, and food systems while driving high-stakes transformations in energy, transportation, and industry. This course explores the politics and political economy of that transformation: why climate policy so often stalls, who wins and loses from decarbonization and adaptation, and how governments, parties, firms, interest groups, and social movements shape outcomes. Using political science as a primary lens (and drawing on economics and sociology), we compare climate governance from international negotiations to national policymaking and subnational experimentation, with particular attention to the United States and China. Through timely case studies—carbon pricing, industrial policy, clean energy, climate finance, and climate justice—students build practical analytical skills for understanding today’s biggest policy battles and evaluating competing solutions.

POLSCI 3084-01 - Race, Film, and American Politics

Faculty - Matthew Hayes

Since the era of silent films, race, film, and politics have been linked in the United States. The first film screened in the White House was The Birth of a Nation - a virulently racist film idolizing white supremacy and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Since that time, films have served as a medium for creating and contesting American identity, structuring racial hierarchies, and framing debate about race and inclusion. This course will use a political science lens to investigate motion pictures as not merely entertainment, but as political texts that influence public opinion, policy discourse, and national identity. Students will trace the link between race and politics across several decades of film-making and within multiple different genres of film. By pairing film screenings with scientific research, we will investigate how visual storytelling impacts the legislative agenda, civil rights movements, and the understanding of power.

POLSCI 4123-01 - Ethnic Conflict in Comparative Perspective

Faculty - Deniz Aksoy

This course introduces advanced undergraduate students to the principal concepts, main research questions and proposed answers in the study of ethnicity and ethnic politics. The goal of the course is to build a solid foundational knowledge and to develop an advanced understanding of ethnic politics and ethnic conflict. We will begin by defining ethnicity, ethnic identity while exploring why, how and when ethnicity matters in politics. A through examination of various theories related to ethnically-based identification and political mobilization will follow. Subsequently, the course will delve into different types of ethnic conflict, including non-violent immigrant-native conflict, ethnically based violent riots, as well as mass scale violence of ethnic cleansing and genocide. We will also investigate the wide-ranging consequences of ethnic conflict and explore alternative solutions designed to end such conflicts. This course will allow students to engage with cutting-edge political science studies to develop a deep understanding of ethnic politics and conflicts across different contexts.

POLSCI 3619-01 - Legal Systems

Faculty - Hannah Simpson

This is a 3000-level undergraduate course that studies systems of law as political institutions. We will study how "law" and legal systems are defined, how such systems emerge in a society, the role these systems play in economic, political, and social outcomes, and the incentives of system actors like prosecutors and judges. We will draw on readings from economists, legal scholars, and political scientists.

POLSCI 4501-01 - Topics in Political Theory: Artificial Intelligence: Politics, Ethics, and Policy

Faculty - Clarissa Hayward

Artificial intelligence is an increasingly important site of power, as governments, corporations, and other institutions rely on AI systems to classify people, make predictions, and guide decisions that profoundly affect social and political life. This upper-level seminar examines the ethical and political questions raised by the development and deployment of AI, with particular attention to debates about how these technologies should be governed. Drawing on political theories of democracy as well as contemporary debates in ethics, the course examines competing approaches to the governance of AI, with a focus on questions about corporate power, political accountability, and the role of public institutions in shaping technological development. The seminar emphasizes careful reading, discussion, and critical and constructive engagement with questions of institutional design.

POLSCI 4638-01 - Social Choice Theory

Faculty - Keith Schnakenberg

This course provides a rigorous introduction to the field of social choice theory, which studies howgroups with diverse preferences make collective decisions. Specifically, we will study the mathematical and normative properties of preference aggregation rules which may include majority rule, unanimity rule, and many others. The course, like the field of social choice theory, will make heavy use of mathematics and formal logic, though I will assume no prior mathematical knowledge.