Current Courses (at NYU)
This course has as a central focus the political institutions of the United States and the effects of those institutions on policy outcomes. In the first half of the course, we explore the U.S. Constitution and the three branches of government: the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Judicial Branch. In the second half of the course, we look at how public opinion and voting serve as mechanisms to connect national institutions with the preferences of voters.
CORES-AD 26: Legitimacy (Fall 2012 through 2017)
What are the foundations of political legitimacy and to what extent do governments abide by them? In what ways does political legitimacy differ from other notions of legitimacy? In this course, we will explore these questions using both classical and contemporary accounts. For the first half of the course, we focus our attention on political systems in Medieval Europe, the Middle East, and Early Modern Europe. This is done through the lens of great thinkers, including Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Burke, and others, as well as a series of primary source documents. We then proceed to the “post-1789” world and discuss legitimacy in the context of democratic government. Topics covered include the role of legislators, issue representation, descriptive vs. substantive governance, and the ongoing debate between advocates of majoritarianism and those of proportionalism.
POLSC-AD 401/401: Senior Capstone Seminar in Political Science I & II (Fall/Spring 2013-2014, 2014-2015)
This course prepares students for writing their senior capstone project. Topics include research design, causal and descriptive inference, a review of applied statistics, and several rounds of drafting with peer feedback.
SOCSC-AD 113: Probability and Statistics (Spring 2013)
The fundamental concepts of probability and the theoretical underpinnings of statistical inference form the foundation for data analysis in the social sciences. To this end, this course is designed to give students a rigorous foundation to both classical/Frequentist and Bayesian approaches to both probability and inference. We begin the semester with the axioms of probability, from which we develop the notions of distributions, random variables, random samples, and large sample theory. After this, we look at both Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian approaches to point/interval estimation and hypothesis testing. The course will end with an inference-based look at linear regression.
CORES-AD 34J: Polarization & CORES-AD 43: Ideology (Special Summer Core Courses - 2013 & 2014/2015, respectively)
Archived Courses
At NYU:
POL-UA 395: Comparative Legislative Institutions (Spring 2012)
The goal of this course is give students a broad introduction to the systematic study of legislative institutions. During the course of the semester, we will use the United States Congress as both a blueprint and a stepping-stone for the study of legislatures in other Western democracies. We will begin with a discussion of the nature of institutions and ways of designing mechanisms for representing individuals in large democracies. After that, we will focus on three broad themes: electoral accountability, the role of parties in shaping the legislative arena, and the impact of different institutional arrangements on outcomes. We will begin this part of the course with a survey of the origins and history of Congress. Subsequently, we will look at parties, elections, and institutional variation in a broader, comparative view.
The syllabus can be found here.
At the University of Rochester:
Full Courses:
PSC 248: Politics of the Middle East (Fall 2008)
PSC 167: Politics of the Middle East (Summer 2009, 2010; Summer 2007)
Short Courses:
Intro to R (Fall 2008)
Intro to LaTeX (Fall 2008)
Bayesian Study Group (Fall 2008)
TA Courses:
Psc 505: Maximum Likelihood Estimation (Fall 2009)
Psc 267: Identity, Ethnicity, and Nationalism (Spring 2009)
Psc 200: Applied Data Analysis (Spring 2007 & 2008)
Psc 107: Positive Political Theory (Fall 2007)
