5229 Social Science Plaza B; (714) 824-5361
Mark P. Petracca, Department Chair (Acting)
The Department of Politics and Society offers a wide variety of courses at the introductory, lower-division, and more specialized upper-division levels. Courses in both micropolitics (individual and group politics) and macropolitics (politics at the state and international levels) are offered. The curriculum is organized into five areas: American politics and society, political theory, international relations, comparative politics, and public law. The Department also offers an Honors Program in Political Science for juniors and seniors, culminating in a senior honors thesis.
The Department is composed of a strong and diverse faculty especially interested in analyzing central questions of political science related to such topics as policy-making, political structures, participation, conflict, change and development, power and authority, and interstate relations. The faculty has particular strength in interdisciplinary approaches, in comparative analysis, and in the application of quantitative data to political science issues.
University Requirements: See pages 5155.
School Requirements: See page 321.
Departmental Requirements for the Major in Political Science
School requirements must be met and must include 11 courses (44 units) as specified below:
A. Three introductory courses (12 units) in political science, Political Science 6A, 6B, and 6C. It is recommended that these courses be taken during a student's first two years as a Political Science major at UCI.
B. Two lower-division courses in political science (eight units).
C. Six upper-division courses in political science (24 units) chosen from one of the political science modules numbered 120179. Three of these courses must be from one module. In addition, the lower-division introduction course to that module also is required.
Honors Program in Political Science
The Honors Program in Political Science is open to all junior and senior Political Science majors who meet the minimum academic qualifications (3.5 GPA in Political Science courses and 3.2 GPA overall).
During their junior year, Honors program students must enroll in at least one Honors Seminar (Political Science H180). These courses include intensive reading and discussion of the most influential works and fundamental issues in modern political science, and prepare students for rigorous independent research. Students should also prepare a written proposal for their senior thesis. Proposals are approved by their faculty advisor and filed with the Department and Undergraduate Counseling offices.
During their senior year, students must enroll in the Honors Thesis Workshop (Political Science H182A, offered during the fall quarter), and three quarters of the Senior Thesis course (Political Science 190). Students write their senior thesis, which is designed and completed under their faculty advisor's supervision. Upon successful completion of their senior thesis, students graduate with Honors in Political Science and their transcripts note that they were in the Honors Program in Political Science.
Public Affairs Internship Program
The Public Affairs Internship Program, sponsored by the Department of Politics and Society, is designed to provide Political Science students with professional experience in the fields of government, nongovernmental organizations, the media, law, business, consulting, and others. The program is open to all sophomore, junior, and senior Political Science majors and minors.
This program provides a selection of internship opportunities open exclusively to Political Science students by intern-sponsors, as available. Students also may create their own internship opportunities, consistent with Departmental guidelines. Students are required to enroll in Political Science 183 during the quarter of their internship. This course is supervised by the internship coordinator and participating members of the faculty.
Information and applications are available in the Department office.
Political Science Minor Requirements
Requirements for the minor in Political Science are met by taking seven political science courses (28 units) as specified below:
A. One course selected from Political Science 6A, 6B, or 6C.
B. Three upper-division political science courses, chosen from one Political Science module.
C. Three additional courses in political science, chosen from those numbered Political Science 6A, 6B, 6C, 2079, or 120179.
Participating Faculty
Michel Crozier: Organizational sociology, public administration
Russell J. Dalton: West European politics, mass political behavior
James Danziger: Urban political systems, public policy analysis, and technology and politics
David Easton : Political systems, political structures
Harry Eckstein: Macropolitics and authority relations
Creel Froman: Human analysis
L. Manuel García y Griego: U.S.Mexico relations, international relations, migration and demography
Bernard Grofman: Mathematical models of collective decision making, formal democratic theory, sequential decision making, and politics of small groups
Helen Ingram: Public policy, U.S.Mexico relations, American politics
Claire Kim: Racial and ethnic politics, protest and social movements, contemporary political theory
Kristen R. Monroe: Political economy, rationality, American politics, methodology
Patrick Morgan: National security policy, American foreign policy, international politics, U.S.European relations, Soviet politics
Jack W. Peltason: Constitutional law and civil liberties
Mark P. Petracca: American political institutions (presidency and congress), interest organizations, public policy, power and political discourse
M. Ross Quillian: Mass communication, participatory forms of social organization, sociological theory, sociology of science, and artificial intelligence
Shawn Rosenberg: Political psychology, cognitive psychology, public opinion
Wayne Sandholtz: International political economy, European community
William Schonfeld: Authority, democratic theory, and comparative politics
Caesar Sereseres: U.S. foreign policy, U.S.Latin American relations, Mexican-American politics
Etel Solingen: International relations theory, international political economy, and world politics
Dorothy J. Solinger: Chinese domestic politics and political economy, comparative politics, history of political philosophy
Alec Stone: Comparative politics, comparative judicial behavior, international relations
Rein Taagepera: Mathematical models and quantitative analysis of elections, inequality, arms races, growth-decline phenomena and Baltic area studies
Katherine Tate: African-American and minority politics, voting behavior, public opinion and American elections, state and urban politics
Carole J. Uhlaner: Comparative political participation, formal models of political behavior
Martin Wattenberg: American political behavior and institutions
The Department of Politics and Society offers a program of study leading to the Ph.D. in Political Science. The graduate program emphasizes empirical democratic theory, with an emphasis on the United States and other industrialized and industrializing nations, within a comparative context. Faculty interests include political behavior, political psychology, public choice theory, political economy, international relations, systems theory, mass media, and authority relations. Institutions of interest include the executive branch, bureaucratic politics, political parties, and representation and electoral systems. The strengths of the Political Science graduate program include its small size, its personalized attention to students, and its location within an interdisciplinary school.
Three Organized Research Units, the Institute of Transportation Studies, the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations, and the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, offer opportunities for participation in ongoing faculty research. One group of Political Science faculty share interests in applied Public Choice with faculty members in both Economics and Philosophy; another group is involved with the program in Global Peace and Conflict Studies; and others are involved in the Center for the Study of Democracy.
The deadline for application for fall quarter admission is January 15. Students are admitted for winter or spring quarters only under exceptional circumstances. Additional information is available in the general section on admission to Social Science graduate programs. Please note especially the required examinations.
First-year students must take a core program of graduate seminars, focusing on major substantive areas as well as research methods. Students are required to complete one year of statistics, preferably before enrollment but no later than their first year. Competence in a foreign language is required. Students may substitute mastery of an advanced research skill in place of a foreign language. To acquire such a skill (which could involve course work in such disciplines as economics, mathematics and computer science, or statistics), students could take courses in econometrics, advanced multivariate regression, or computer science. Attendance in a colloquium series also is required for all graduate students during their first two years in residence.
Reviews and Examinations
Students ordinarily are expected to maintain a grade point average of 3.5 or better. At the completion of the first year, a review of performance in the graduate program will be conducted for each student by the Politics and Society faculty.
A set of three papers, normally completed by the third year of study, tests the student's competence in a set of major domains for intellectual inquiry. These domains are determined by the student and the Political Science Graduate Director. Upon successful completion of these papers and demonstration of competence in mathematics and a foreign language or an advanced research skill, a candidacy committee is appointed to oversee the qualifying examination and the formal advancement to candidacy. Students are expected to advance to candidacy by the ninth quarter of graduate study.
After the student advances to candidacy, the doctoral committee, usually composed of three members of the candidacy committee, reviews a dissertation prospectus and supervises work toward completion of the dissertation. Within six months of the oral qualifying examination (the formal advancement to candidacy), students are expected to meet with their doctoral committee, in order to discuss with the members a dissertation prospectus.
Concentration in Public Choice
Students may also earn a Ph.D. degree in Political Science with a concentration in Public Choice. This is an interdisciplinary field, at the intersection of political science and economics, which draws on sophisticated quantitative tools to model the functioning of political institutions. Faculty from the Departments of Politics and Society, Economics, and Philosophy and from the Graduate School of Management are involved in research that supports the concentration.
Students who elect this concentration are admitted under the normal procedures for the program in Political Science and must fulfill all the requirements for the Political Science degree with the following modifications: (1) students must complete the core sequence in Public Choice, which is jointly organized by faculty in the Department of Politics and Society and the Department of Economics. (A background in economic theory equivalent to Economics H100A-B-C, Honors Intermediate Economic Theory, is a prerequisite to this sequence); (2) students must complete three courses out of a set designated by the interdisciplinary committee, such as American Political Institutions, Comparative Political Parties and Electoral Systems, and Theory of Political Coalitions; (3) students are encouraged to take graduate-level econometrics; and (4) students are expected to write their dissertation on a topic related to Public Choice.
Concentration in Political Psychology
Students may also earn a Ph.D. degree in Political Science with a concentration in Political Psychology. This is an interdisciplinary field which unites the concerns of political science and psychology. As such, it offers the dual advantages of advancing the study of various forms of political behavior by drawing on psychological theory and research, and advancing psychological inquiry by forcing a greater recognition of the institutional and cultural determinants of people's actions and of the political-philosophical bases of psychological theorizing. The Department of Politics and Society has responsibility for administering the concentration; participating faculty come also from the Department of Cognitive Science, the School of Medicine, and the School of Social Ecology.
Students who elect this concentration are admitted into the Political Science graduate program according to normal procedures and are expected to satisfy all of the regular Political Science degree requirements. Special requirements associated with the concentration are as follows: (1) a two-quarter course on Political Psychology; (2) three graduate psychology courses chosen from a specified list, including, for example, such courses as Personality and Psychopathology, Introduction to Cognitive Psychology, Social Cognition, Developmental Psychology; and (3) a dissertation topic related to Political Psychology.
