Political Science

An analysis of the American political system, with emphasis on the Constitution. Topics include American conservative and liberal political traditions, political parties, and the organization and operation of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government.

This course studies the structure and functions of American governments, the American pattern of local government, relationship of local to state government, and of both to the Federal government. Special emphasis will be on the political institutions and legal system of the State of New York and the municipalities of Columbia and Greene counties.

Wars, revolutions, human rights, terrorism, natural and man-made disasters, international trade and economic issues impact the entire global community. This course is designed to acquaint the student with the tools and methods to analyze the historical, political, and industrial precursors leading up to these events. With this practical and theoretical foundation, students will be able to understand and engage in informed discussions about the important global issues in the coming decades.

This course provides a broad overview of the comparative politics subfield by focusing on substantive questions about the world today. Students will use their knowledge of these concepts to help understand past and current developments in a variety of geographical settings, including developing countries. The course invites students to grapple with ideas central to political structures around the world. For example, the state’s role enforcing order, the differences between autocracies and democracies and the institutional forms of democratic governments. Students will consider how some institutions are more likely than others to produce desirable social outcomes such as accountability, redistribution and political stability.

This course will have three major components. It will investigate the history and the process of Presidential elections in America. It will also present the multiple viewpoints on the major issues of the current Presidential campaign. Finally, there will be a discussion of the value and practice of critical thinking.

Provides an introduction to constitutional law and public policy. Seminars emphasize effective reasoning on a range of contemporary issues, determining each credit on the basis of relevance to present-day concerns of American citizens.

This course is a chronological introduction to a selection of influential works in Western political theory. Some of the central themes that the course will cover are: justice, human nature and political action. The course will draw on the works of important thinkers, including: Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, and Tocqueville. Students are introduced to the ideologies of liberalism, conservatism, fascism, socialism, and nationalism, and consider how assumptions about human nature in general, and political ideals of order, liberty, equality, and justice, in particular, affect choice of ideology.