Intro to Comparative Politics.
Empirical Political Analysis.
This course was designed for Poli Sci and business majors at USF on campus and online via Canvas, and for International Business majors at LIM College online via Blackboard. Taught at The University of Tampa, as well.
This course is an overview of the field. We will discuss quantitative and qualitative research, the scientific method, analysis, as well as key concepts in the field to include: Democratization, Modern Systems, Authoritarianism, Transition, Human Rights and Race, Post-Communist societies, to name a few. Scholarly works in the field are included to highlight concepts and cases for the students.
This is an upper-level course required for Poli Sci Majors at USF.
The course was taught in two parts: 1) Research methods. Students learned how the scientific method applies to political science. Survey research methods and techniques, sampling, qualitative field work, panel research, probability and non-probabilistic methods were explored. and 2) Quantitative methods. This portion of the course is mathematical in nature. We begin with simple data visualizations, then move standard deviation, data cleaning and variable creation, t-tests, Chi-square, NHST, and linear regression using the R-statistical language.
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Additional Courses
Terrorism.
This is an upper-level taught at The University of Tampa.
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Students will examine the root causes of terrorism and uncover its psychological and historical underpinnings. This course seeks to understand how terrorism impacts local and global economies and presents challenges to diplomacy between nations. We look at not only terrorism in context of the Middle East, but globally, to include domestic terrorism in the United States. Quantitative and qualitative research methods, analysis, as well as key concepts in the field will be discussed, including identity, ideology, human rights, and race. Scholarly works at the nexus of terrorism and diplomacy are included. Rudimentary Open Source Intelligence Skills taught. UT students created a Threat Assessment as their final project.
Europe.
This is an upper-level undergraduate course taught at USF.
This course examines European political development with a focus on the time period of 1945 to the present. The main focus is around the political development of several European countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and East-Central Europe) along key dimensions of comparative politics (e.g. state-making, political economy, governance, representation and contemporary challenges). Europe faces many serious problems, including divisions along class, race, or cultural identity as well as questions concerning the future of Europe and the European Union. In addition, we will discuss the development and future of the European Union as well as the various current crisis facing Europe throughout the semester.​