Politics PhD

Brandeis University's PhD program in Politics emphasizes linkages among the patterns of American political development, contemporary American politics, and the politics of other developed and developing democratic systems. The graduate curriculum also addresses the advanced industrial democracies of Western Europe, the democratizing states of Eastern Europe, and the international political, economic, and military-security relations among these states. Substantive emphasis is on the politics of democratic and democratizing regimes. Our program is distinguished by methodological emphasis on analytical case study, including comparative case study rather than abstract mathematical modeling or statistical analysis. PhD students receive training in each of the major subfields of political science, including both qualitative and quantitative research methods, through graduate-level field seminars. The graduate program features instruction in small seminars under close faculty supervision, supervised independent study within the program, and the opportunity to incorporate work in related and relevant fields, for example, economics, history, and sociology.