Resources
The Political Science Colloquium
Foreign Study Programs
Research Opportunities for Graduate Students
Graduate
Opportunities and Minority Achievement Program
The Political Science Computer Classroom
Comparative Law and Society Studies (CLASS) Center Graduate Fellows Program
Center for Social Science Computation and Research
Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences
The Graduate School Homepage
Thesis and Dissertation Format Templates
Graduate School Application for Admission
Campus Tour
The Political Science Colloquium is a series of lectures given throughout the year by visiting professors, University of Washington faculty and graduate students, as well as leading political analysts from the United States and abroad. The presentations, which focus on recent developments in social science research, are held in a seminar setting which stimulates interaction between the speaker and audience. On occasion, a lecture is jointly sponsored with another discipline such as economics, sociology, or women studies. The department typically sponsors two to four colloquia per month.
Past colloquium participants have included:
- Martha Ackelsberg, Smith College
- Honorable David Barrett, Former NDP Premier for the Province of British Columbia, Canada
- Phillip Bonner, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Robert D. Cherny, San Francisco State University
- Murray Edelman, University of Wisconsin
- Dana Frank, University of California, Santa Cruz
- Susanne Jonas, University of California, Santa Cruz
- Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, Whitman College
- Lynda Lange, University of Toronto, Canada
- Tony Jefferson, University of Sheffield, (Center for Criminological and Legal Research)
- Marina Klicperova, Czech Academy of Sciences, (Institute of Psychology)
- John Lutz, University of Ottawa, Canada
- Valentine Maghadan, United Nations University, Helsinki, Finland
- Robert Nakamura, State University of New York, Albany
- Bruce Nelson, Dartmouth College
- Reza Sheikholeslami, University of Oxford, England
- Kaare Strom, University of California, San Diego
- Stephen Tomsen, University of Newcastle, Australia
- Mark Zacher, University of British Columbia, Canada
- John Zaller, University of California, Berkeley
The University has established formal student exchange programs with a number of major foreign universities. Graduate students in political science are eligible to apply for financial assistance to spend a year of study at such eminent institutions as the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, Kobe University, and the University of Tubingen.
Graduate students are often involved in research projects led by department faculty members. To the extent that funds permit, this participation takes the form of research assistantships, which are normally half-time appointments for one or more quarters. Departmental, Graduate School, other University moneys, and external grants are used to support such appointments. Student-faculty collaboration has generally led to opportunities for dissertation research and the publication of joint articles. Current research projects that involve graduate participation are as follows:
- The State Responsiveness and Citizen Participation Projects
Prof. Margaret Levi is completing a book on the variation in the
behavioral dissent and consent of citizens in democracies. The
empirical focus is on conscription, conscientious objection, and
voluntary military service over the last two hundred years in
the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and France. This
research has received support from the German Marshall Fund of
the U.S., the National Science Foundation, the Australian War
Memorial, the Graduate School Research Fund of the University
of Washington, the Canadian Embassy Scholars Program, and the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Her next
project, also comparative and theoretical, investigates institutional
arrangements that promote trust in government.
- Regulatory Policy Design and Implementation for Environmental Risks
Prof. Peter May has undertaken several studies with National Science
Foundation aimed at understanding the means with which national
and state governments exert regulatory influence in addressing
environmental risks. In collaboration with researchers at five
other universities, he recently completed a study of the role
of state planning mandates in influencing local environmental
management. In order to study regulatory features not typically
contained in American mandates, he is currently collaborating
with researchers in Australia and New Zealand on an extension
of the U.S. study. This study contrasts the cooperative policies
found in those countries with the more coercive U.S. approaches.
A third study addresses regulatory enforcement of building codes
in the United States. Each of these studies has involved graduate
student assistance with field research and data analyses.
- Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Research Opportunities
There are numerous research opportunities funded through the Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Chair, held by Prof. James Caporaso. Past research support has included funding for projects on international institutions, integration in the European Community, local development in Tanzania, and theories of the state and structural Marxism. Additional projects in comparative and international politics will be funded in the years ahead. Some of these projects may involve student dissertation research, others may involve Prof. Caporaso's research on international institutions.
The department is committed to innovative uses of technology in the field of Political Science. We are working hard to develop one of the finest computer classrooms at any Political Science department in the country.
To learn more, go here.
Graduate students across the University of Washington campus may be invited to participate as CLASS Graduate Fellows. The primary requirement for eligibility as a fellow is an intellectual interest in socio-legal study and a demonstrated commitment to participation in CLASS-sponsored graduate seminars, colloquia series, conferences, and related activities. Graduate students may be nominated for the Fellows program either by themselves or by affiliated faculty; conferral of the Fellows status and graduation certificate will be made by the CLASS faculty standing committee.
The opportunities available to CLASS graduate fellows include:
- Guaranteed funding to at least one Law and Society Association annual meeting during the student's graduate career;
- Priority access to graduate courses taught or approved by CLASS faculty;
- Invitations to special CLASS-sponsored speaker series, conferences, tutorials, and related events;
- Opportunities to meet and work with distinguished visiting scholars;
- Opportunities to compete for CLASS funded teaching assistantships, research assistantships, fellowships, and the like;
- Conferral of a CLASS Fellows Certificate upon graduation that prominently identifies completion of a program in interdisciplinary socio-legal study.
For more information, visit the CLASS website. |
