Research Honors Track - Applications due October 26, 2012

This innovative program leads to a BA degree with honors and will give participants the analytical tools they need to write top-notch honors theses and collaborate with Stanford faculty and Ph.D. students.  Through a specially designed program of study and research, students will develop the foundation for successful careers in academia, law, government, business, and other fields.  Click here to download the application.

Doctoral Admissions - Applications due December 4, 2012

The application for Fall 2013 admission to the PhD program is now open.  All supporting materials, including transcripts, should be submitted online by December 4, 2012.  The Department of Political Science does not offer a Master's program. Questions regarding graduate admissions should be directed to carambula [at] stanford [dot] edu (Chandelle Arambula).  Before starting the application process, please read the information about the graduate program requirements and take a look at our list of Frequently Asked Questions.  

Department Event - Professor Tom Clark
October 24, 2012 - 3:15pm

Tom S. Clark is associate professor of political science. His research focuses on judicial politics, American political institutions, rational choice institutionalism. Current research projects include a the study of law-making in the judicial hierarchy, the development of statistical models of legal doctrine, and the consequences of various methods of selection for state supreme court judges' responsiveness to public opinion. Prof. Clark's book, The Limits of Judicial Independence, was published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press. Prof. Clark received his BA (2003) from Rutgers University, and his MA (2005) and PhD (2008) in Politics from Princeton University.

American Politics Workshop - Andrew Reeves

"The Particularistic President:  Do Presidents Target Federal Spending Toward Electorally Important Constituencies?"

October 17, 2012 - 12:15pm - 2:05pm

Andrew is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston University.  He earned his Ph.D. in 2008 from the Department of Government at Harvard. His work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics, among other outlets.

Political Methodology Workshop - Amanda Robinson

"Nationalism and Inter-Ethnic Trust: Experimental Evidence from an African Border Region"

October 18, 2012 - 1:15pm - 3:05pm

Amanda Lea Robinson is a PhD candidate in Comparative Politics and will complete her degree by June 2013. Her research focuses on the political causes and consequences of ethnic and national group identification in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on how group identification impacts inter-ethnic trust and cooperation in diverse settings.

CP/IR Workshop - Jessica Gottlieb

Does Raising Voter Expectations Improve Accountability? A Field Experiment in Mali

October 19, 2012 - 11:30am - 1:00pm

Abstract: I argue that if citizens systematically underestimate what their government can and should do for them, then they will hold politicians to a lower standard and sanction poor performers less often. A large-scale experiment across 95 localities in Mali in which some voters received information about potential government performance identifies effects of raising voter expectations. Survey experiments on the intent to vote (N=5,560) suggest that people in treated villages are indeed more likely to sanction poor performers and vote based on performance more often. There is also support for the idea that voting is a strategic calculation in which an individual’s actions are contingent on beliefs about others: treatment improved voter coordination and worked better when provided to a majority of villages. A
behavioral outcome – the likelihood that villagers challenge local leaders at a town hall meeting – adds external validity to survey findings. Contrary to expectations, increasing voter information appears to decrease politician transparency, at least in the short-run.

Theory Workshop - Luigi Caranti

Kantian Peace and Liberal Peace: Three Misunderstandings

October 19, 2012 - 1:15pm - 3:00pm

Abstract: In the definitive articles of Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), Kant advocated three main institutional reforms to eliminate the greatest self-inflicted tragedy of humanity: war. In the 1980s, Michael Doyle (1983a; 1983b) interpreted a two hundred year absence of conflicts between democracies as a striking piece of evidence in favor of Kant’s theory and sparked one of the most important research programs in the social sciences of our times – the so called Democratic Peace Theory (DPT). The Kantian heritage, however, has been at times misinterpreted by DPT scholars and their research thereby made vulnerable to serious criticisms and retorts. This paper identifies three points in the interpretation of Kant that could be challenged, one for each of the three definitive articles. Once the difference between Kant’s path toward perpetual peace and the one suggested by DPT scholars is made clear, a new agenda for normative thinking and empirical research is defined. The paper offers one case study – focussed on the Arab League’s record of international controversy composition – meant to show how the new model proposed – or at least a very significant portion of it – receives some empirical confirmation.