The core fields of study regularly offered by the Department are listed below. Doctoral students must develop competence in three of these fields, in addition to the required curriculum in Political Analysis. It is the student's responsibility, in consultation with faculty advisors, to propose a combination of fields that is coherent, provides breadth, and yet contains a degree of specialization. The listing is not exclusive. Students may propose special concentrations which combine parts of the standard fields, define new fields, or draw upon disciplines other than political science. Such a special field must be a coherent part of a sufficiently broad overall program of study.
This field at MIT emphasizes the role of institutions, the public, and other mechanisms of the American political process in policymaking and policy formation, and their impact on policy outcomes.All students studying American politics and public policy encounter a core set of issues and methodologies through the field seminar in American politics and the basic methodology courses taught in the department. Beyond this introduction to the field, students then focus on one of three specialties: political institutions, mass political behavior, or public policymaking.Major areas of emphasis in the department currently include congressional reform, referendum politics, race and ethnicity, American political development, health policy, science and technology policy, and environmental policy.
The core of the comparative politics field is an understanding of the theories, concepts, and methods of comparative political analysis. Students in this field focus on the comparative study of political systems, political processes, and political behavior either of advanced industrial societies or of developing countries. Students concerned with the former Communist countries of eastern Europe or with the successor states of the Soviet Union are encouraged to seek appropriate conceptual frameworks for comparative analysis of political and economic transitions. A multiplicity of research topics exists within this broad domain. There is interest, for example, in the conditions that promote the maintenance and consolidation of democracy and the ways in which global processes affect the security of individuals and group within societies. Attention is given to the role of culture and language in political behavior, the formation of group identities and the determinants of ethnic conflict, the social and political consequences of large scale internal and international political movements, the political determinates of economic reforms, business-government relations, the emergence of civil societies, and the processes of institutional development. Policy formation and implementation are explored in most courses in comparative politics and political development.
Generally, study in this field leads to overseas research and the opportunity to become familiar with a foreign society and political system.The Department provides a field research methods seminar to assist students in preparing their dissertation proposal for overseas research. The goal of training in comparative politics is to gain a mastery of social science research methods, to learn how to utilize the methods of comparative analysis, and to acquire a cultural and political understanding of particular countries.
Studies in this field provide an understanding of international politics through assessment of theories and analysis of special problems. Such problems include the causes of war, the changing nature of international security problems, arms races and their control, the management of international trade and finance problems, the impact of limited resource availability on technological development and transfer, global issues and world order problems, and international implications of science and technology. They also focus on the causes and consequences of United States foreign policy.
This field is intended for those students who wish to pursue advanced work in the areas of formal modeling and research methodology including social statistics. Numerous opportunities exist for advanced work using mathematical, statistical, and computerized representation. Students are encouraged to explore the differing research philosophies and strategies visible in the fields of history, sociology, economics, linguistics, cognitive science, management, and computer science. Students may supplement their training in Political Science with courses taken in other MIT Departments and at Harvard.
This field includes: (1) normative political theory; (2) macro social theories, including topics in political economy and sociology; and (3) philosophy of social science. Courses are taught from both historical and topic-oriented perspectives.
This field focuses on the relations between state and economy. Students who concentrate in this area start from one of the core courses that present major state-economy paradigms: liberal, neoclassical, Marxist, sociological. Students then concentrate their work in the political economy of advanced industrial societies including Japan, or in international political economy, or in the political economy of developing countries. The objective is to develop a deep understanding of different political and economic approaches to a problem and to do this by exploring historical and comparative evidence as well as the data conventionally analyzed in studies of public policy. Students working in this field often draw on the resources of the Economics Department and the Sloan School of Management and find the lectures and seminars at the Center for European Studies at Harvard relevant to their interests.