Chair's Welcome
Welcome to the Department!
In many ways, we are not a typical Political Science department. We’re a comprehensive department at a Research I public university, yet our approach to studying and teaching politics features work at the intersections of the traditional subfields. The work of our distinguished and diverse faculty is eclectic and rigorous, methodologically open and innovative, grounded in theory, global in reach, and engages some of the big questions in politics. Over the past several years, the department has hired more than a dozen new faculty whose work cuts across subfields and investigates protest and dissent, international migration, education politics and policy, international human rights, comparative democratization, and the language of politics, among other topics. The department is infused with new energy, and has expanded its course offerings considerably.
This past year has seen even more change and growth in the Department. The Political Science and Legal Studies Departments were merged, bringing six Legal Studies faculty into the Department. Coupled with faculty hiring over the past several years, this merger has made us the largest department in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. As of June 2011, we have 37 faculty.
What does this mean for you? If you’re an undergraduate Political Science student, it means our curriculum starts with a focus on political issues and problems and offers you perspectives and theories that help make sense of a complex political world. In addition to traditional introductory courses in Comparative Politics, American Politics, World Politics, etc., we teach courses called “What is Politics?,” “The Politics of Food,” “Race and Politics,” “Controversies in Public Policy,” “Power and Participation,” “Politics Now,” “Democracy and Justice,” and others that reach across disciplines. We aim to teach you skills, content, and approaches to understanding politics rather than strictly political science per se.
If you’re an undergraduate Legal Studies student, it means you are part of a unique and diverse community. We are the only university in New England to offer a legal studies major, and we are one of the most interdisciplinary programs in the College. The legal studies curriculum encourages you to think critically about law and justice within the context of different cultures and at different points in time. We often say that legal studies is education about law, whereas law school is education in law. As a legal studies student, you will have the opportunity to explore courses including “Human Rights and Wrongs,” “Modern Political Trials,” “Alternative Dispute Resolution,” “Death Penalty in America,” “Law and Literature,” and “Environmental Justice.” The rich, interdisciplinary nature of our courses mean that you will learn how tackle and understand complex societal and legal issues from multiple perspectives.
While many of our introductory political science and legal studies courses are large, we cap most of our upper-level courses to ensure smaller classes and richer discussions. You’ll enjoy small class sizes with all the benefits of studying in a large research university. This approach also provides excellent preparation for many types of graduate schools, and our students go on to graduate school at the most prestigious universities in the country and world.
Our graduate program in Political Science is strong in all the major subfields, yet what sets us apart is our cross-subdisciplinary approach to political science. Our workshops and speakers series focus on broad themes, such as Ambiguities of Democracy or Governance and Institutions, that draw faculty and graduate students from all subfields. You’ll hear political theorists commenting on the work of a comparativist, American politics scholars engaging with international relations specialists, scholars of public policy and law probing across subfields from their unique perspectives. We believe that political science is enriched by diverse perspectives from within the discipline as well as those from outside, which is why we’ve also launched an interdisciplinary speakers series. If as a graduate student you want to study mainly in your subfield you can do that, but you’ll miss out on the rich intellectual life of the department and a Carnegie Research I university. And, frankly, if you want to study formal modeling or mathematical game theory, you’ll probably be better served elsewhere. But if you want to study in a department where we value important political questions and believe the study of politics is too important to be left to single subfields and even single disciplines, I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better place.
We do all of this in the beautiful, sometimes quirky, and rural yet culturally-rich place called the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. The Five-College area (which includes Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, in addition to the University) provides abundant intellectual opportunities, and when you crave city life Boston is under two hours and New York City about 3½ hours away to which there’s frequent bus/train service if you don’t want to drive.
Take a look around our website and, better yet, visit us in Amherst. You’ll find a distinctive department and an exciting intellectual environment.
Frederic C. Schaffer
