Field Description
Students are expected to acquire a thorough knowledge of the discipline of political science, including substantial theoretical, conceptual, and substantive competence in a major subject; to provide a clear demonstration of the methodological, linguistic, and other skills needed to conduct original scholarly research; and to acquire at least one semester's experience as a teaching assistant.
Numerous interdisciplinary programs are available to support students’ training and research, including the Cornell Center for Social Sciences, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Society for the Humanities, the Peace Studies Program, and various area programs.
Doctoral students are assigned an interim supervisor upon admission. In the second year, students assemble a temporary Special Committee which guides and supervises subsequent academic preparation and assists in preparation for Q exam and field paper (if required). In the third year, students assembled their final Special Committee which supervises the A exam (prospectus defense) and all subsequent dissertation research.
By the end of the second year, students are expected to have taken the Qualifying Field Examination (Q exam). The exam consists of a written exam in the student's major subject. Additionally, before being admitted to candidacy and by the beginning of the third year, students specializing in International Relations and Comparative Politics are required to compose an extended research paper in the student's specialized field of interest. All students are also required to complete their A exam (prospectus defense) by the end of the third year. At this oral exam, the student presents a thesis proposal outlining the hypothesis, data, methods, and resources needed to carry out the dissertation research.
Data and Statistics
Field Manual
Faculty
Begum Adalet
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: political thought
- Research Interests: contemporary political theory, history of Cold War political and social thought, Colonialism and development, U.S. - Middle East
Talbot M Andrews
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: Environmental Policy
Santiago Anria
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics
- Research Interests: Latin American politics; political parties; social movements; labor unions
Oumar Ba
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: international relations
- Research Interests: aw and violence, humanity and world
David Alexander Bateman
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: My research focuses on American politics, often from a comparative or historical perspective. development of voting rights in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, with particular attention to periods of disfranchisement; analyses of preference formation, change, and measurement in the U.S. Congress; American political institutions with a close attention to the substance of political conflicts and the meanings that have been conferred on these by participants.
Richard F Bensel
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: American political development; political economy; state theory
Mabel M. Berezin
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; international relations
- Research Interests: Europe; France and Italy; old and new forms of anti-liberal politics; nation-state building with reference to the European Union; emotion and politics
Dina Bishara
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; political thought
- Research Interests: authoritarianism, state-labor relations, social and protest movements, regional focus, Middle East and North Africa
Alexandra Blackman
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics
- Research Interests: Politics of the Middle East, including gender, political party development, the evolution of authoritarian institutions, and the role of foreign and transnational forces in the region
Allen R Carlson
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: international relations
- Research Interests: international relations
Stephen Coate
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: political economy; formal theory; campaigns and elections; electoral system
Peter K. Enns
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics; political methodology
- Research Interests: American politics; public opinion; representation; quantitative methods
Gustavo A. Flores-Macias
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; political methodology
- Research Interests: comparative political economy; state building; migration; organized crime
Jason Frank
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: political thought
- Research Interests: modern and contemporary political theory, democratic theory, American political thought, historical approaches to the study of political culture
Jill Frank
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: political thought
- Research Interests: History of Political Thought, Constitutional Democracy, Social and Political Philosophy
Candelaria Garay
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics
- Research Interests: Social policy and redistribution, labor and social movements, interest representation, environmental politics, Latin America.
Siba Grovogui
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics
Will Hobbs
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: political methodology
Sabrina M Karim
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; international relations
- Research Interests: conflict, state-building, gender, security sector reform, peacekeeping, field experiments
Peter Joachim Katzenstein
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; international relations
- Research Interests: security policy, political economy; relation between international and domestic politics
Jonathan David Kirshner
- Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
- Concentrations: Government: international relations
- Research Interests: international relations; international political economy; political economy and national security
Sarah Kreps
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: international relations
- Research Interests: interstate and intrastate conflict; international cooperation and institutions; nonproliferation studies; post-Cold War international order; international law and the use of force
Douglas L. Kriner
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: American political institutions and the separation of powers
Alexander Livingston
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: political thought
- Research Interests: contemporary political theory, pragmatism and American Political though, nineteenth century political thought, politics and morality
Jospeh Margulies
- Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: American political culture; the national security state; race and criminal justice
Patchen Markell
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: political thought
- Research Interests: European (particularly German) political thought and philosophy and its historical contexts from Kant forward; twentieth-century (particularly postwar) American political thought, including but not limited to the work of European emigrants such as Hannah Arendt; the modern receptions of classical political theory and literature; Marxism and critical social theory; critiques of imperialism and racial domination; democratic theory; theories of power, agency, freedom, and unfreedom; the history of political theory as an academic field; and colleges and universities as social and political institutions.
Suzanne B. Mettler
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: American political development; public policy; political behavior; gender and politics; race and politics
Jamila Michener
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: American politics, poverty and inequality, political participation, race and ethnic politics, urban politics, public policy.
Victor Gilbert Nee
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; international relations
- Research Interests: sociology
Thomas B. Pepinsky
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; international relations
- Research Interests: comparative and international political economy; authoritarianism; southeast Asian Politics; Islam
Isabel M Perera
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics; comparative politics
- Research Interests: Health, Labor, and Social Policy in Comparative Perspective
Kazi Sabeel Al-Jalal Rahman
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: political thought
- Research Interests: His academic research focuses on issues of democracy, governance, economic power, political economy paradigms, racial equity, and inequality. He works extensively with a range of think tanks, advocacy organizations, and foundations to develop novel approaches to addressing these issues in practice.
Rachel Beatty Riedl
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics
- Research Interests: Democracy and Autocracy, Regime Transitions; Religion and Politics; Political Party Systems; Historical Institutionalism; Governance and Decentralization, African Politics
Kenneth M. Roberts
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics
- Research Interests: Latin American politics; comparative political economy; party systems and political representation; labor and social movements
Bryn Rachel McCammon Rosenfeld
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics
- Research Interests: public opinion, political behavior, democratization, protest, survey methodology, authoritarian regimes, past communism politics
Edward Stiglitz
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: American politics
- Research Interests: law, courts, bureaucracy
Christopher Robert Way
- Campus: Ithaca
- Concentrations: Government: comparative politics; international relations; political methodology
- Research Interests: international relations; international and comparative political economy; econometrics; game theory; comparative politics