Teaching
Philosophy
In my classes, I prioritize active learning and tutorial-style instruction. Whether it's a methods course, substantive course, undergraduate lecture, or graduate seminar, students can expect to get up, move, and participate. Get ready to participate in experiments, run simulations, debate policy effectiveness, hold mock elections, analyze data, and participate in narrative-driven lectures. Students can also expect plenty of opportunities for 1-1 instruction and small group seminars. My goal is to meet students where their interests are and tailor instruction to engage and severely challenge each student.
Courses
Historical Political Economy
This course asks and tries to answer: 1) How and why do states form? 2) After states form, how do they consolidate and grow? 3) How do states carry out decisions? 4) How and why do rulers share power with others? 5) How do states determine who takes power? 6) What role do non-state institutions play in the governing actions of historical regimes? and 7) Why and how do regime types change over time? For each question, we consider evidence from Ancient Egypt, Ancient/Medieval China, and Medieval Europe.
Political Economy of Development
This course covers cutting-edge research on the political economy of development. We focus on the role political incentives and institutions have on social and economic outcomes. We read work by sociologists, political scientists, and economists with a focus on causal inferential statistics and formal theoretical modeling, while covering topics like protests, economic inequality, racial conflict, economic growth, and democratic backsliding.
Research Design and Methods
This course introduces you to the theory and methods of contemporary political science and how political scientists conduct research. We learn how to ask answerable research questions, generate hypotheses, design a research plan, adjudicate between different research methodologies, learn of to measure and collect data, and use that data to evaluate your hypotheses. Finally, we learn to apply social scientific reasoning to evaluate claims by commentators, pundits, scholars, and other social scientists.
Comparative Politics
This course exposes you to the main theoretical ideas in comparative politics. Together, we dissect theories and apply them to countries across time and across the world. In dissecting these theories, we learn how to interpret and evaluate the quantitative evidence supporting or combating these theories. With a strong emphasis on comparing democracies and autocracies, we examine political-economic systems, censorship, bureaucracies, political parties, voting, succession, and political violence.