Comparative Politics Preliminary Exam Field
The field of comparative politics has been changing a lot in recent years, and the program at Washington State University reflects this. We have a small but energetic core comparative politics faculty with a wide range of theoretical, methodological, and substantive interests.
- Amy Mazur is an internationally recognized scholar of state feminism and empirical approaches to gendered public policies in western post-industrial democracies with a focus on France, and has collaborated in a number of research and scholarly projects seeking to formalize qualitative research.
- Andrew Appleton is more oriented towards behavioral studies and has an extensive training in quantitative and cross-national statistical methods.
- Claire Metelits works on issues of armed conflict in the developing world through qualitative field-work rich research and relates her comparative work to International Politics.
There are also faculty with specializations in other areas who work on comparative politics research.
- Cornell Clayton has worked on legal regimes in emerging democracies such as Slovenia and Turkey.
- Martha Cottam is a leading scholar of image theory as applied specifically in the Latin American context and is also working on theories of ethnic and civil conflict.
- Thomas Preston focuses in his work on international security and weapons proliferation in such places as the former Soviet Union and more recently North Korea.
- Otwin Marenin is a leading scholar of comparative policing and post-conflict security, particularly in countries that have experienced war and civil conflict.
We have also substantial expertise at the faculty level in conducting surveys in other countries.
- The Division of Governmental Studies and Services, under the leadership of Dr. Nicholas Lovrich, has done extensive fieldwork in Canada, and Dr. Lovrich has experience in survey work in Japan.
- Drs. Travis Ridout and Andrew Appleton recently conducted a cross-national study in the United States and Japan.
- Drs. Edward Weber, Nicholas Lovrich, and Mark Stephan have done surveys and fieldwork in Uzbekistan.
This wealth of expertise is transmitted not only through the seminars offered in the comparative field, but also through our offerings in research methods and in other examination fields. Students entering the Ph.D. program in political science will find a faculty that is internationally engaged and, even where not formally trained in comparative politics, sympathetic to the logic and aims of comparative research.
Requirements
The course work for our preliminary exam field in comparative politics reflects this generalist approach while also providing an opportunity for students to work with faculty on their areas of expertise through independent readings, with the possibility of tailoring independent readings to fit student interests.
Students work with their committees to develop an appropriate program that meets the following course requirements:
- Pol S 534: Theories in Comparative Politics
- Pol S 537: Concepts and Methods in Comparative Politics
- Pol S 536: Topics in Comparative Politics
- One additional 500-level course in political science or other social science disciplines
- Independent Readings in Comparative Politics
Comparative Politics Faculty
Dr. Amy Mazur
Professor of Political Science
- Gender and politics
- Comparative politics
- Feminist policy
- Methodology
Dr. Andrew Appleton
Associate Professor of Political Science
- Comparative politics
- Political parties
- Post-industrial societies
- Political behavior
Dr. Claire Metelits
Assistant Professor of Political Science
- Comparative politics
- State building
- Conflict studies
- Insurgencies and terrorism
Heading