Satisfies Junior Year Writing requirements for POLISCI majors, through assignments practicing the types of writing used by citizens, policy advisers, and politicians in public debates about contemporary issues.

Satisfies Junior Year Writing requirements for POLISCI majors, through assignments practicing the types of writing used by citizens, policy advisers, and politicians in public debates about contemporary issues.

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The United States leads the world in spending on health care and is without peer in terms of biomedical research. However, the United States is not the healthiest country in the world as measured by key indicators of population health like infant mortality and life expectancy. Unequal access to quality health care is certainly part of the explanation in a country where, even after the new health care reform legislation, some 25 million Americans will have no insurance.

The class will examine how political scientists use surveys to measure and understand public opinion and election outcomes. A significant component of the course will be a class project to develop, conduct, and analyze an exit poll survey of voters during the elections. In the process of conducting this survey, students will learn valuable skills including how to write survey questions, how to properly sample and interview respondents, and how to analyze survey data.

Survey of some of the central texts and themes in contemporary political theory. Authors include Arendt, Foucault, Habermas, Marcuse, Haraway. Themes include authority, modernity/postmodern-ity, identity, rights, totalitarianism, lib-eration, communicative ethics, deterrito-rialization, pluralism, multiculturalism, governmentality and rationalization.

The workings of the American judicial system within context of the larger political system. How demands are processed by trial and appellate courts; who uses courts and why; who judges are and how they get their jobs; why judges decide cases the way they do; the impact of court decisions.