Individual research to be taken under direction of faculty member. Students wishing to complete work on an honors paper should contact the Political Science Department.

The object of this seminar is to prepare eligible senior honors candidates in political science for the completion of a senior honors thesis. Students writing honors theses will also work simultaneously with an individual supervisor and, during the spring semester, will enroll in an independent study (PSCI 499) under that faculty member's guidance. See department for more details.

Focusing on presidents, governors, and big-city mayors, this course will explore a wide range of historical and recent examples of executive leadershi and decision-making. How do their actions in office shape and get shaped by long-term historical and political forces? How and why do executive office holders use (and occasionally abuse) their power? What opportunities exist t transform both policy and public opinion? What kinds of constraints circumscribe the options available and limit the impact of executive choices? Exploring presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama, governors including Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller and Bill Clinton and mayors like Richard Daley, Sr. and Jr., Ed Koch, and Ed Rendell, this course at once examines the personalities and predilections of individuals as well as the political ideas and institutions that shape their time in office. Registration in this course is by permission of the instructors only. To seek a permit for the course please provide a short personal statement of not more than one page with the following information: your name and contact information; your year; your major; other courses you have taken on related subjects; how this course would fit into your larger academic and intellectual development; any other personal or extenuating circumstances you think it would be useful for us to know about you. Email personal statements to Peter Siskind (siskind@sas.upenn.edu) no later than April 3 and enrollment decisions will be made by April 18.

This class explores the origins, development, and possible futures of social policy regimes in the industrialized countries, in the context of broader political and historical trends. Topics include pensions, health care, and poverty alleviation; "families" of welfare states; the relationship between labor markets and social policy; feminist and Marxist critiques of welfare states and welfare state studies. Open to graduate students and qualified undergraduates with permission of the instructor.

Individual research to be taken under direction of faculty member. Students wishing to do an independent study should contact the Political Science department.

Consult department for detailed descriptions. More than one course may be taken in a given semester. Recent titles have included: Sustainable Environmental Policy & Global Politics; Shakespeare and Political Theory.

Consult department for detailed descriptions. More than one course may be taken in a given semester. Recent titles have included: Sustainable Environmental Policy & Global Politics; Shakespeare and Political Theory.

This is a course on power-sharing in deeply divided places. It will examine the circumstances in which federal and consociational institutions are proposed and implemented to regulate deep national, ethnic, religious or linguistic divisions. Case studies include such places as Iraq, Switzerland, Canada, India, and Belgium as federations, and Northern Ireland, Bosnia Herzegovina, Lebanon and Macedonia as consociational systems.

This course intends to familiarize the student with the concept of "law", its use as a constitutive and regulative force in the international arena, and the expanding scope of international law through the inclusion of transnational law and human rights.

This seminar is taught in Washington D.C. for students enrolled in the Washington Semester Program. It includes an orientation to observation and research in the Washington Community and a major independent research project on the politics of governance.