Politics, Law, & Government Courses

The major controversies that exist in law and criminal justice today are discussed with emphasis on the development of critical thought concerning these issues. Both empirical evidence and grounded theory is discussed in such a manner as to help the student formulate thoughtful opinion concerning the selected topics. Topics include but are not limited to: The Death Penalty, Gun Control, The Insanity Defense, Drug Legalization, Prison Privatization, Drunk Driving Laws, Myths of Organized Crime, Crime and the Media, Fetal Endangerment Statues, and The Jury System.

“The Supreme Court’s Greatest Hits” is an online course featuring student/professor analyses of selections from the most important decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the last fifty years. The topics to be covered during the term include: 1) Freedom of expression, 2) Freedom of religion, 3) Reproductive Freedom, 4) Discrimination based on gender, 5) Discrimination based on sexual orientation, 6) Pornography and the legal test for obscenity, and 7) Highlights from the criminal justice system. Student discussion leaders will be assigned to lead threaded discussions for each of the 27 cases we study, depending on enrollment, this will amount to four times during the term that a student will lead threaded discussions. Topics will run for one, two or three weeks during the term. The course will utilize a CD-ROM disk developed by Professor Jerry Goldman of Northwestern University. Installation of the disk on the hard drive of your computer will bring you the recorded oral arguments made before the Supreme Court of the United States and the oral announcements of decisions for the cases included by Professor Goldman on the disk. The disk also contains the full text of the opinions issued by the Court on the included cases.

What foreign policy issues are on the horizon for U.S. policymakers? What should our foreign policy be as we enter the post 9/11 era? How should that foreign policy be made, and by whom? The domestic political environment facing U.S. foreign policymakers changed first after the Vietnam War and then again after the September 11th attacks. With the demise of the Cold War, the external political environment changed as well. This course will look forward to contemporary U.S. foreign policy on both the domestic and external levels. Domestically, the course addresses the various governmental and non-governmental actors who combine to produce foreign policy. Externally, it examines problems that revolve around specific issues (like terrorism and homeland security, the promotion of democracy, foreign trade, etc.) or around particular countries (Afghanistan, Russia, China, Mexico, Cuba, etc.).

The course challenges the facile assumption that because guerrilla wars have ended and the generals have turned power over to civilians, Latin America will necessarily go democratic." The course focuses on the peace processes in selected Latin American countries in order to explore the serious challenges that confront nations seeking to democratize when they are saddled with deep legacies of authoritarianism."

This course will examine China’s foreign relations from the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 to the present. We will explore the theories and concepts involved in the study of foreign policy, followed by an in-depth examination of the domestic factors shaping China’s foreign policy goals and implementation.

This class will examine the perennial dilemmas between Freedom, Order, and Equality especially as they pertain to political ideology and public policy. To understand the dilemmas, we will examine the basic structure of our government with special attention paid to the structural tensions that augment this dilemma. Next, we will look at how the dilemmas surface in contemporary debate among liberals and conservatives and how the dilemmas impact the definition of policies in the United States. We will be discussing and debating a number of current issues that pit these three valued ideals against one another to better understand the positions presented by advocates on both sides of the policy debates and to illuminate our personal positions and views.

The course examines the central question in international politics: What is the 'right' course of action in a given situation? Thus it considers various approaches to the study of ethics and morality as well as the ends pursued, the means used, and the importance of the decision-making strategies employed by policy makers.

Computer simulation models will be used to learn important economic concepts and to analyze current economic problems. Students will assume the role of economic policymakers and as such will initiate policy changes and examine their effects on various aspects of the economy, such as the national output level, the inflation rate, the unemployment rate, and the distribution of income. No prior computer experience is necessary.

Basic concepts and tools used by economists and applications of those tools to analyze contemporary economic and social issues will be discussed. Included among the issues will be drug prohibition, tax reform, Social Security, the minimum wage, and environmental protection.

The study of global communications in the context of world politics. Overview of world mass media characteristics, impact of British colonialism, role of the United Nations, the New World Information Order, ownership of communication technology, issues in monopoly of knowledge, analysis of information flow and world economy and role of image-makers.

In a world subject to war, ethnic conflict, and economic disruption, to what extent does geography explain the unfolding of global events? How do access to waterways, the level of economic development, the blessings of natural defenses, and proximity to other nations determine the stance a country presents to the outside world? Geographer Dr. Jeffrey Roet will introduce geopolitical concepts that help explain conflict and change and show how geography is indeed the stage upon which history is set. He will reveal centuries-old patterns behind the dynamics of war, economic competition, and other current global concerns.

Global communications have created an international community exposed to persuasive campaigns, some advertising and some informational. This course will examine the influence and impact of global persuasive campaigns through an analysis of the structure of the campaign process and the use of images to create familiarity and experience. The ultimate impact and influence of such campaigns are highly variable, depending on the media in which they appear and the cultural context in which they are interpreted.

This course presents an analysis of political, economic, and cultural dimensions of globalization. The emergence of an increasingly interconnected global economy marked by increasing economic integration and creation of a borderless world, has posed new challenges for global governance and the autonomy of nation states. Hence, another dimension of our nuanced world is that the manifestations of new primordial loyalties and cultural and identity anxieties threaten to tear the world apart. At no other juncture in modern history was the world so connected, yet so divided by strife and conflict. The emergence of global problems such as environmental degradation, spread of infectious diseases such as AIDS, the lingering problem of global hunger and genocide are among the pressing issues of the new century. These developments would have an indelible impact on the emerging society of the 21st century. This course is designed to provide a forum for analysis and discussion of these issues. While the attempt is to dissect these issues primarily on their own terms, we would also discuss the challenges they pose to the United States and the global community.

An introduction to the theoretical evolution of the international economy as a subdiscipline within the field of international relations. The course discusses the classical economists, Marxist theory and neo-Keynesian theories of growth and capital accumulation and distribution, then focuses on first, second and third world perspectives on the international political economy. Also studied are the roles of multinational corporations, the International Monetary Fund, the politics of international trade, the role of foreign aid, the third world debt crisis, the impact of the technological revolution, the emergence of a multi-polar world, and the ramifications of Japanese and German economic resurgence for “the new world order.”

This period course in American history reviews major political, economic, social, cultural and diplomatic events: World War II, the Truman administration and post-war America, the Eisenhower administration and the consensus of the 1950s, the Kennedy administration, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, the civil rights movement, the Republican ascendancy, and the rise of southern power.

The emergence of Mexico from colonial status to hemispheric leader and major force among third-world" countries. Considerable attention is devoted to the Revolution of 1910 and the ongoing revolutionary process it initiated. The role of the United States in the emergence of modern Mexico is discussed in detail. The course concludes with an extensive examination of Mexico's role as a major oil producer and the current financial and economic crisis with which the country is contending."

Now that the Cold War is over and the 20th century is coming to a close, how well did the United States fulfill its destiny of making the past hundred years the American Century" that so many Americans predicted in the 1890s? This course offers some perspectives as answers by tracing the development of a global American foreign policy from the period following the Spanish-American War until the end of the Cold War. It also examines the forces - both foreign and domestic - that influenced those policies as the United States tried to formulate new diplomacies to meet each of the ever changing challenges in world affairs of this most dynamic century."

This course introduces the graduate students to the practices of terrorism--international and domestic--along with the history and motivations behind it. Particularly, the course will provide insight into terrorism from a historical, geographical, cultural, and ideological basis. Strategies to combat terrorism will also be explored. After completing this course, students will not only be familiar with a variety of terror groups and terrorist acts that have made the news, but will also have a deeper understanding of the hostilities and conflicts which give birth to terrorism around the world and at home.

During the 20th Century and now into the 21st, Texas provided a large share of national leadership in the United States and had some groundbreaking participants in the political change of that century. In this class, we will examine ten of those political figures, including the five chamber leaders of the House from Texas (Speakers Garner, Rayburn, and Wright and Majority Leaders Armey and DeLay), the three presidents from Texas (Johnson, Bush, and Bush) and the two Supreme Court associations (Associate Justice Tom Clark and prospective Justice, as of this writing, Harriet Miers). We will also examine the politics of the 1960's and early 70's as Texas made the transition from a one party Democratic state to a Republican dominated state. The focus will be on techniques of political leadership and how they changed over the course of the 20th Century and into the 21st.

Abortion has been a highly controversial subject in American culture since the 1960’s, and it will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. This course will examine this complex issue from various angles: medical, psychological, philosophical, legal, and religious.

The struggle for control of Jerusalem and surrounding territories has made violence between Jews and Arabs a recurring phenomenon since the 1920s. The 1948 creation of an independent Israeli state only exacerbated this violence. This course examines contemporary conflicts issues between Israelis and Palestinians against the context of a history of past conflicts. Focal points for the course are the underlying reasons for these conflicts, their conduct and resolutions to date, and the various efforts to promote a more lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

This course will introduce students to the impact of natural and man-made disasters on society, as well as the principles and practices of modern emergency management efforts in the United States. This includes efforts in planning for disasters, mitigating disasters, responding to them, and recovering from them. An emphasis is placed on the role that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security play in the process.

This course focuses on the imbalance of power that has existed historically between the United States and Latin America and the hemispheric problems that have resulted from that imbalance. From the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 to the military intervention in Haiti in 1994, the United States has asserted a leadership role in the hemisphere, often with little understanding of the impact its actions had on the less-powerful nations of Latin America. Most of the course is devoted to the 20th Century, and major issues are examined from both the U.S. and Latin American perspectives.

An examination of the dramatic but low profile political transition taking place in countries that only recently were torn by revolution and by counterinsurgency wars. The original causes of those revolutions, including the Cold War ideological divisions that formed the international environment in which they took place will be discussed. We will examine the tentative, fragile steps that are presently being taken to overcome the authoritarian and violent political legacies of the past and to build a more inclusive, democratic political future.

This course examines the policy and legal controversies surrounding the application of capital punishment (i.e., the death penalty) as a punishment for homicide. Topics include capital punishment through history, U.S. Supreme Court decisions and contemporary problems with the application of the death penalty, focusing on race and gender. The course will also analyze the troubling nature of wrongful convictions in regards to death row inmates.

History books and news stories give us accounts of terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, wars, and threats of possible wars. Many people have a desire to reflect on what they can do to contribute to the cause of peacemaking and conflict resolution. This course will provide readings that will assist students in understanding strategies of peacemaking and will expose them to particular leaders in this area of endeavor.

In this course, we will learn why we have the largest prison population of any developed country and also the highest recidivism rate per capita. Along the way, we will see how harsh mandatory sentences and the War on Drugs has affected the prison population and how this carries over upon release back into society. We will also explore how other countries incarcerate and release inmates. Finally, we will look at what we can do in-prison and post-prison to ensure the success of these men and women.