POLS 3397: Politics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence and Automation (Coming Spring 2023!)
While once considered science fiction, artificial intelligence (AI) and automated systems making critical decisions in our lives. They are used to help determine what schools people attend, what they see online, what kind of home and car they can buy, and whether they are placed in jail or prison. In the near future, some believe that we will see still greater extension of this role as AI-powered automated systems for driving vehicles, diagnosing or treating illnesses, and fighting wars. In the more distant future, some worry that artificial general intelligence (AGI) will either cause an unprecedented growth in human prosperity or become an existential threat to humanity.
How do these systems work? What can they accomplish? What can go wrong? How should we regulate these systems? These questions are often difficult to answer and cut at the heart of our ideas of ethics and justice. This course provides students with an introduction to the controversies surrounding both near-term and long-term AI. Students will be engaged in open discussions, conducted in a Socratic method, over both general issues of ethics and regulation, as well as specific case studies. Students will learn about the difficult ethical tradeoffs that these systems pose for policy-makers and businesses. By the end of this course, students will be ready to engage with the implications of our increasingly computerized age.
POLS 6394: Machine Learning for Social Sciences (Syllabus)
Driven by an explosion of data availability and computational power, the past twenty years have seen a resurgence of interest in machine learning – a field of study that allows machines to learn without being explicitly programmed (Samuel 1959). Growing out of artificial intelligence (AI) research, machine learning encompasses both an approach to learning from data and techniques for statistical estimation that differ in important ways from traditional approaches to statistical modeling. The social sciences have not been left out of this resurgence. Indeed, machine learning approaches have made their way into many social science studies – usually in order to develop forecasting models, estimate highly non-linear and/or interactive patterns, or produce unique data for analysis. These application have opened new vistas for research.
This course is an introduction to the philosophy and methods of machine learning. We will be covering foundational aspects of machine learning, basic models, and applications in statistical software (R in this case). We will also be covering some of the applications of machine learning in the social sciences and methods that have become more popular within the social science context (versus, say, in computer science). At the end of this course, students should be able to deploy machine learning solutions to social science research problems and have the foundational understanding to build on this knowledge.
ICPSR Short Workshop: Introduction to R (Syllabus)
R has become the software of choice for a great deal of social science analysis. The fact that it is free and open source, along with the wide variety of libraries available for use in analysis, have contributed to this popularity. And a number of graduate programs, including my own, emphasize skills in R to the exclusion of traditionally popular statistical software (e.g. SPSS, Stata, SAS). Yet, for many students, their first foray into using R is an exercise in frustration. Part of the problem is that R is usually taught in a cookbook-like manner. Students are shown how to do basic statistics using R by copying a series of commands – basically like using dropdown menus, but without the convenience of the dropdown menus. There is little emphasis on understanding how R works. For example, students are taught to run a regression using the command lm(y ~ x, data = dataset), but are never taught that lm() is a function – much less, how they can write their own functions to do almost anything they want. In other words, R is often taught in a way that emphasizes its weaknesses (no dropdown menus, flexible command structure) and barely mentions its strengths (ease of programming, openness to new techniques, quality of replication files). Predictably, this results in frustrated students who learn to rely on copying formulas from cookbooks rather than developing their own unique projects. Instead of seeing the new vistas R opens for analysis, students primarily see R as a more difficult way to cover the same ground.
This course takes a very different approach. Instead of teaching students a series of models or summary statistics commands (which they can easily look up online), it focuses on using R as an elegant and approachable programming language, through which students can do a variety of tasks, just one of which is running statistical models. Moreover, the course presents a “tidy” version of R programming, utilizing the “tidyverse” group of tools developed by Hadley Wickham and others to make R programming more unified and easier to understand. These tools produce a “grammar of analysis” that will allow students to quickly produce outstanding research. It also produces code that will be more easily understandable to others (and yourself) and allows more consistency in process. This is not to say we will be completely ignoring some aspects of base R, rather the goal is to get students working in a system that will be more comfortable, readable, and consistent. It will also be more in line with current publication expectations (e.g., producing plots using ggplot2, rather than the base R graphics).
The goal of the course is to produce students who are confident users of R in a range of situations and can easily expand their knowledge to new fields.
POLS 3316: Statistics for Political Scientists (Syllabus)
Quantitative methods is the most important class you will take in the political science curriculum! Ok, maybe that is an overstatement. But a basic understanding of statistics and probabilistic reasoning is critical for your other political science classes, your understanding of political news, and, for many of you, your future careers. Whether you are trying to understand the latest public opinion polls, evaluating the effectiveness of a public works project, or tackling a complex research question, an understanding of statistics and research methods will be invaluable.
Yet, many political science students are intimidated by the prospect of quantitative research. This course tries to overcome this hesitancy by providing a skills-based introduction to statistical analysis. The core philosophy of this class is that if the material is practical, then students will be better motivated to invest in learning these skills. Because this class has been designed for and by political scientists, our applications will come primarily from studies of politics and policy. Lectures will sometimes address abstract concepts, including probability theory, statistical distributions, hypothesis testing, and data visualization. However, you will be graded mostly on your ability to put tools to their correct use.
POLS 3393: Model United Nations (Syllabus)
The course teaches international politics and diplomacy through simulations of the United Nations. During this course, students will learn about how the United Nations works, what topics it covers, and how states behave within the UN. By the end of the course, students will have done substantial research into the topics before the UN, the policies and politics of a country, written topic guides, position papers and resolutions for their country, practiced negotiation, and participated in a General Assembly simulation.
This is not a course on the history of the UN or international organizations. Students are encouraged to enroll in other courses which cover these topics. This course focuses on learning international relations, diplomacy and leadership through simulation and participation, and will only briefly touch on the basics of the UN and international organizations.
POLS 6331: Seminar on Democratization (Syllabus)
This is a graduate-level seminar on democracy and democratization. Perhaps more than any other field, democratization has been at the heart of comparative politics. An inordinate number of the “classics” in comparative politics have dealt in some way with the onset, survival, or effects of democracy. The topic, however, is a multifaceted one; combining economic, cultural, social, and psychological viewpoints. The topic is also one that has been addressed within the context of all geographic areas and countries. Thus, no single course can come close to covering all the important works on this topic.
This course is meant to provide a graduate-level introduction to the democratization literature. Students will be exposed to selections offering a wide variety of methodological approaches and conclusions. The ultimate goal is that the student comes away with a firm understanding of the key insights in the field and with the ability to put together a conference-quality research project on democracy and democratization.
POLS 3309: Democratization (Syllabus)
Perhaps more than any other area of study, democratization has been at the heart of comparative politics. An inordinate number of the “classics” in comparative politics have dealt in some way with the onset, survival, or effects of democracy. The topic, however, is a multifaceted one; combining economic, cultural, social, and psychological viewpoints. The topic is also one that has been addressed within the context of all geographic areas and countries. Thus, no single course can come close to covering all the important works on this topic.
This course is meant to provide an undergraduate-level introduction to the democratization literature. Students will be exposed to selections offering a wide variety of methodological approaches and conclusions. The ultimate goal is that the student comes away with a firm understanding of the key insights in the field and with the ability to put together a professional quality research project on democracy and democratization.
POLS 4349: International Energy Politics (Syllabus) [Not currently taught]
Modernity has been defined by an increasing use of energy, especially from fossil fuels. This course looks at the international and comparative political implications of human efforts to acquire and utilize energy resources. The focus of this course is on the implications of energy use in an international context. This means we will spend only a little time dealing with US energy policy. Instead, we will be primarily focusing on how the search for energy affects relations between countries and domestic politics in energy producing and consuming countries.
Students should leave the course with a strong understanding of the history and future of international energy politics. In particular, students should be conversant in the development and internationalization of energy politics from the establishment of an international oil and natural gas market to concerns about the implications of fossil fuel use on the global environment. Readings and videos have been selected to reflect a variety of views, with which students will critically engage.
POLS 3335: Political Terrorism (Syllabus) [Not currently taught]
Since September 11, 2001, terrorism has become a central concern for policy makers and international studies scholars. The impact of terrorism and the policies associated with the “war on terrorism” have become fundamental references in the current political debate. This course looks at several questions regarding terrorism. What is terrorism? How has the threat of terrorism changed over time? What motivates different terrorist groups? When does terrorism succeed or fail? How do terrorist groups structure and fund themselves?
Students in this class will be introduced to a variety of information dealing with the general topic of terrorism. Readings are drawn from psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, policy analysts and the terrorists themselves. At the end of the course, students should have a strong background for discussing and analyzing current events and discourse on terrorism.
While once considered science fiction, artificial intelligence (AI) and automated systems making critical decisions in our lives. They are used to help determine what schools people attend, what they see online, what kind of home and car they can buy, and whether they are placed in jail or prison. In the near future, some believe that we will see still greater extension of this role as AI-powered automated systems for driving vehicles, diagnosing or treating illnesses, and fighting wars. In the more distant future, some worry that artificial general intelligence (AGI) will either cause an unprecedented growth in human prosperity or become an existential threat to humanity.
How do these systems work? What can they accomplish? What can go wrong? How should we regulate these systems? These questions are often difficult to answer and cut at the heart of our ideas of ethics and justice. This course provides students with an introduction to the controversies surrounding both near-term and long-term AI. Students will be engaged in open discussions, conducted in a Socratic method, over both general issues of ethics and regulation, as well as specific case studies. Students will learn about the difficult ethical tradeoffs that these systems pose for policy-makers and businesses. By the end of this course, students will be ready to engage with the implications of our increasingly computerized age.
POLS 6394: Machine Learning for Social Sciences (Syllabus)
Driven by an explosion of data availability and computational power, the past twenty years have seen a resurgence of interest in machine learning – a field of study that allows machines to learn without being explicitly programmed (Samuel 1959). Growing out of artificial intelligence (AI) research, machine learning encompasses both an approach to learning from data and techniques for statistical estimation that differ in important ways from traditional approaches to statistical modeling. The social sciences have not been left out of this resurgence. Indeed, machine learning approaches have made their way into many social science studies – usually in order to develop forecasting models, estimate highly non-linear and/or interactive patterns, or produce unique data for analysis. These application have opened new vistas for research.
This course is an introduction to the philosophy and methods of machine learning. We will be covering foundational aspects of machine learning, basic models, and applications in statistical software (R in this case). We will also be covering some of the applications of machine learning in the social sciences and methods that have become more popular within the social science context (versus, say, in computer science). At the end of this course, students should be able to deploy machine learning solutions to social science research problems and have the foundational understanding to build on this knowledge.
ICPSR Short Workshop: Introduction to R (Syllabus)
R has become the software of choice for a great deal of social science analysis. The fact that it is free and open source, along with the wide variety of libraries available for use in analysis, have contributed to this popularity. And a number of graduate programs, including my own, emphasize skills in R to the exclusion of traditionally popular statistical software (e.g. SPSS, Stata, SAS). Yet, for many students, their first foray into using R is an exercise in frustration. Part of the problem is that R is usually taught in a cookbook-like manner. Students are shown how to do basic statistics using R by copying a series of commands – basically like using dropdown menus, but without the convenience of the dropdown menus. There is little emphasis on understanding how R works. For example, students are taught to run a regression using the command lm(y ~ x, data = dataset), but are never taught that lm() is a function – much less, how they can write their own functions to do almost anything they want. In other words, R is often taught in a way that emphasizes its weaknesses (no dropdown menus, flexible command structure) and barely mentions its strengths (ease of programming, openness to new techniques, quality of replication files). Predictably, this results in frustrated students who learn to rely on copying formulas from cookbooks rather than developing their own unique projects. Instead of seeing the new vistas R opens for analysis, students primarily see R as a more difficult way to cover the same ground.
This course takes a very different approach. Instead of teaching students a series of models or summary statistics commands (which they can easily look up online), it focuses on using R as an elegant and approachable programming language, through which students can do a variety of tasks, just one of which is running statistical models. Moreover, the course presents a “tidy” version of R programming, utilizing the “tidyverse” group of tools developed by Hadley Wickham and others to make R programming more unified and easier to understand. These tools produce a “grammar of analysis” that will allow students to quickly produce outstanding research. It also produces code that will be more easily understandable to others (and yourself) and allows more consistency in process. This is not to say we will be completely ignoring some aspects of base R, rather the goal is to get students working in a system that will be more comfortable, readable, and consistent. It will also be more in line with current publication expectations (e.g., producing plots using ggplot2, rather than the base R graphics).
The goal of the course is to produce students who are confident users of R in a range of situations and can easily expand their knowledge to new fields.
POLS 3316: Statistics for Political Scientists (Syllabus)
Quantitative methods is the most important class you will take in the political science curriculum! Ok, maybe that is an overstatement. But a basic understanding of statistics and probabilistic reasoning is critical for your other political science classes, your understanding of political news, and, for many of you, your future careers. Whether you are trying to understand the latest public opinion polls, evaluating the effectiveness of a public works project, or tackling a complex research question, an understanding of statistics and research methods will be invaluable.
Yet, many political science students are intimidated by the prospect of quantitative research. This course tries to overcome this hesitancy by providing a skills-based introduction to statistical analysis. The core philosophy of this class is that if the material is practical, then students will be better motivated to invest in learning these skills. Because this class has been designed for and by political scientists, our applications will come primarily from studies of politics and policy. Lectures will sometimes address abstract concepts, including probability theory, statistical distributions, hypothesis testing, and data visualization. However, you will be graded mostly on your ability to put tools to their correct use.
POLS 3393: Model United Nations (Syllabus)
The course teaches international politics and diplomacy through simulations of the United Nations. During this course, students will learn about how the United Nations works, what topics it covers, and how states behave within the UN. By the end of the course, students will have done substantial research into the topics before the UN, the policies and politics of a country, written topic guides, position papers and resolutions for their country, practiced negotiation, and participated in a General Assembly simulation.
This is not a course on the history of the UN or international organizations. Students are encouraged to enroll in other courses which cover these topics. This course focuses on learning international relations, diplomacy and leadership through simulation and participation, and will only briefly touch on the basics of the UN and international organizations.
POLS 6331: Seminar on Democratization (Syllabus)
This is a graduate-level seminar on democracy and democratization. Perhaps more than any other field, democratization has been at the heart of comparative politics. An inordinate number of the “classics” in comparative politics have dealt in some way with the onset, survival, or effects of democracy. The topic, however, is a multifaceted one; combining economic, cultural, social, and psychological viewpoints. The topic is also one that has been addressed within the context of all geographic areas and countries. Thus, no single course can come close to covering all the important works on this topic.
This course is meant to provide a graduate-level introduction to the democratization literature. Students will be exposed to selections offering a wide variety of methodological approaches and conclusions. The ultimate goal is that the student comes away with a firm understanding of the key insights in the field and with the ability to put together a conference-quality research project on democracy and democratization.
POLS 3309: Democratization (Syllabus)
Perhaps more than any other area of study, democratization has been at the heart of comparative politics. An inordinate number of the “classics” in comparative politics have dealt in some way with the onset, survival, or effects of democracy. The topic, however, is a multifaceted one; combining economic, cultural, social, and psychological viewpoints. The topic is also one that has been addressed within the context of all geographic areas and countries. Thus, no single course can come close to covering all the important works on this topic.
This course is meant to provide an undergraduate-level introduction to the democratization literature. Students will be exposed to selections offering a wide variety of methodological approaches and conclusions. The ultimate goal is that the student comes away with a firm understanding of the key insights in the field and with the ability to put together a professional quality research project on democracy and democratization.
POLS 4349: International Energy Politics (Syllabus) [Not currently taught]
Modernity has been defined by an increasing use of energy, especially from fossil fuels. This course looks at the international and comparative political implications of human efforts to acquire and utilize energy resources. The focus of this course is on the implications of energy use in an international context. This means we will spend only a little time dealing with US energy policy. Instead, we will be primarily focusing on how the search for energy affects relations between countries and domestic politics in energy producing and consuming countries.
Students should leave the course with a strong understanding of the history and future of international energy politics. In particular, students should be conversant in the development and internationalization of energy politics from the establishment of an international oil and natural gas market to concerns about the implications of fossil fuel use on the global environment. Readings and videos have been selected to reflect a variety of views, with which students will critically engage.
POLS 3335: Political Terrorism (Syllabus) [Not currently taught]
Since September 11, 2001, terrorism has become a central concern for policy makers and international studies scholars. The impact of terrorism and the policies associated with the “war on terrorism” have become fundamental references in the current political debate. This course looks at several questions regarding terrorism. What is terrorism? How has the threat of terrorism changed over time? What motivates different terrorist groups? When does terrorism succeed or fail? How do terrorist groups structure and fund themselves?
Students in this class will be introduced to a variety of information dealing with the general topic of terrorism. Readings are drawn from psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, policy analysts and the terrorists themselves. At the end of the course, students should have a strong background for discussing and analyzing current events and discourse on terrorism.
