Overview
The B.A. degree in political science was first awarded in 1930 and the M.A. in 1932 by the History and Political Science Department at the State College of Washington (renamed Washington State University in 1959). In 1956, history separated into its own department, and in 1982 the Criminal Justice Department was reorganized into the Criminal Justice Program and was housed within the Political Science Department. The overview presented here covers the political science part of our programs on the Pullman campus; for more on our Vancouver programs, click here.
A B.A. is offered in political science with three different options: pre-law, global, and general political science. We offer an M.A. in political science, only with a focus on global justice and security studies, and a Ph.D. in political science that emphasizes a generalist and multi-methods training; students specialize in their dissertations on areas related to faculty members' research interests. Full funding for Ph.D. students is available on a competitive basis. We currently have more than 250 undergraduate majors and 33 graduate students.
Fifteen faculty members teach and conduct research in the major subfields of the discipline: American, comparative, international relations, public policy and administration, political theory, and political methodology, with sub-specializations in public law, American political behavior, political psychology, French and European politics, American foreign policy, gender and politics, the presidency, the Congress, environmental policy, state and local politics, and qualitative methodology, to name a few.
Reflecting a faculty that is highly engaged in the discipline, the department serves as the administrative home for a range of research units, groups, journals, and data sets. The Division of Governmental Studies and Services (DGSS) is located in the department, and the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Pubic Service has close ties. The Institute for the Study of Intercommunal Conflict and the Political Science/Criminal Justice Methods Symposium are also affiliated with the department.
Two major disciplinary journals are housed in the department, Political Research Quarterly and French Politics, as well as several internationally and nationally renowned data sets on public opinion at the community level in the U.S. and Canada (see Leigh Stowell Data Set), on women's policy agencies and women's movements in western post-industrial democracies, and on public opinion about security issues in Japan and the U.S.
Faculty in the department also play leadership roles in groups affiliated with the American Political Science Association, including the Law and Courts Section and the French Politics Group. They are also actively involved, as organizers and as participants, with interdisciplinary groups at WSU such as Gendering Research Across the Campuses (GRACe), the Center for Social and Environmental Justice, the Environmental Studies Colloquium Group (ENSCOG), the Political Psychology Roundtable Group, and the Center for Environmental Research, Education, and Outreach (CEREO).
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