Carlos Carvalho

STATISTICS

B A 286T (MBA Level)

This course focuses on the application of data analytic, statistics tools in business decisions. The main topic of the course is regression analysis. Students will learn how to use regression to analyze a variety of complex real-world problems. Numerous empirical examples from finance, marketing, economics, politics, sports, etc. illustrate applications of the material covered.

ADVANCED STATISTICS AND ECONOMETRICS IN R

STA 280N (MBA Level)

This course is on the use of advanced statistical and machine learning tools applied to economic questions. Loosely speaking, this is a class where “Economics” meets “Big Data Analytics.” The goal is to understand a number of modern statistical techniques and apply them to answer cause-and-effect questions in economics, finance, marketing, etc.

TRADE-OFFS, VALUES, AND DATA

UGS 302

This course is about policies and the trade-offs inherent in choosing which policies get enacted into law. To understand the current policymaking environment, students should understand three components: where we are as a society today (progress); what goals/values we are trying to attain/promote with policy (values); and how we evaluate the effects of these policies (empirical policy evaluation). We achieve these goals by exploring ideas in philosophy, economics and statistics. 

Adam Klein

SURVEILLANCE, LIBERTY, AND PRIVACY

LAW 397S

This course explores rapidly evolving debates around government surveillance, new technologies, civil liberties, and personal privacy.  It considers surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community, police, and U.S. allies and adversaries abroad, examining key legal instruments and court decisions in light of broader policy debates.  The class will also examine the interbranch allocation of responsibility for authorizing, implementing, and overseeing surveillance programs.  In particular, the course will focus on surveillance activities affecting new and emerging technologies and those technologies’ potential to shift the balance between citizen and state.

David Leal

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

GOV 310L

This course will introduce you to government and politics in the United States.  We will cover topics such as the Constitution, political institutions, elections and public opinion, rights and freedoms, and public policy.  We also introduce approaches to the social scientific study of politics, particularly data analysis, and make comparisons between American government and Texas government throughout.  The class begins with the basic principles of politics, followed by a discussion of the creation of the nation and its fundamental features, including the Constitution, the development of democracy, the importance of federalism, and fundamental rights and liberties.  We then explore the institutional building blocks of government – the Congress, presidency, bureaucracy, and federal courts.  The class then examines public input into the political system, particularly public opinion, elections, political parties, interest groups, and the mass media. We conclude with the key social, foreign policy, and economic issues facing the nation.

Brian Roberts

MONEY IN U.S. POLITICS

GOV 370R/LAH 350

This course explores the nature and consequences of money in American politics and why, at this point in history, we find ourselves embroiled in the most significant debate over campaign finance reform in well over forty years. The debate goes to the heart of the U.S. Constitution, pitting the First Amendment rights of speech and assembly against notions of equality challenged, some claim, by the scale and distribution of money in contemporary US politics. 

Campaign finance issues lie at the crossroads of a bewildering number of analytical perspectives. We examine the work of historians, social scientists, legal scholars, and interested parties on all sides of the argument in an effort to assess current policy debates and to understand how we got here. 

The objective of the course is not to persuade you of any particular point of view but, rather, to arm you with the substantive knowledge, theoretical foundation, and analytical tools needed to be resolute in whatever conclusions you draw from this experience. 

Daron Shaw

AMERICAN AND TEXAS GOVERNMENT

GOV 310L

This course is an introduction to American government and politics. While our main focus is on the national level, additional attention is paid to the state and local governments of Texas. In some instances, the American case is placed in a comparative context derived from the experience of other western democratic nations. In other instances, we focus on changes over time within the American political system to demonstrate how principles often change with context. At all times, we are interested in a better understanding of how this particular system has developed and what it means for citizens of the United States. 

There are three primary objectives in this course. The first is to provide basic descriptive information about the American and Texas political systems by examining important political processes, institutions, and actors. The second is to develop analytical skills with which to understand complex relationships and phenomena. The third is to introduce the work of the political scientist by concentrating on the paradigms and techniques of the discipline. 

POLITICAL PARTIES

GOV 325

This course focuses on the role political parties play in representative democracies. We will study the variables that distinguish party systems in different countries, the historical development of parties, and the nature of parties in contemporary democratic societies. We will also explore how parties mobilize mass populations for political purposes, as well as the character of party elites, activists, and supporters.   

The first three weeks of the course are largely general and theoretical. Examples are drawn from different countries to illustrate questions and arguments.  The remainder of the course deals almost exclusively with the American parties.   

My approach will be thematic.  By studying institutions and processes that are generally characteristic of parties in democratic systems, you will recognize that many features of the American parties are a particular configuration of more general phenomena.  Through the readings and lectures on the U.S. party system you will develop a conceptual and theoretical understanding of not only the American parties, but of political parties across the globe.

Joey Barretta

AFRICAN AMERICAN SOCIAL & POLITICAL THOUGHT

GOV 335G

This course will apply a core text approach to the study of the African American experience in America from the institution of slavery to the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s. Additionally, it will conclude with a look at contemporary authors on racial equality today. This course will focus on four core thinkers and their critics. Elements of the biographies of these core thinkers will be consulted to situate their ideas in context, but the primary focus will be on the content of their ideas.  

1. Frederick Douglass: Douglass will serve as the foundation for the course because the other three are in some ways building on or departing from his project. He knew the evils of slavery personally. Nevertheless, Douglass argued that America could and should be home to African Americans even though they did not have equal status in a white-dominated society. 

2. Booker T. Washington: Washington argued that through industrial training and hard work African Americans could elevate their status in society. Washington described the status of African Americans in the aftermath of slavery, particularly addressing the practical problems they faced as they sought a more equal station in society. 

3. W. E. B. Du Bois: Du Bois was critical of Washington’s “gradualist” approach, instead encouraging the most intellectually capable to pursue higher education to elevate their race as a whole. Du Bois will also help to illustrate the conditions African Americans faced in the first half of the of twentieth century.  

4. Martin Luther King, Jr: King is the final core thinker who represents a time approximately a century following the Emancipation Proclamation. This section will explore the principles and goals of King’s nonviolent direct action program as well as the content of the “dream” he spoke of in 1963.  

5. Critics of Core Thinkers: We will study critics who opposed the four core thinkers, directly or indirectly, including Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Kwame Ture & Charles Hamilton, among others.  

6. The Dream Today: The question of whether Martin Luther’s dream has been attained will provide the transition point to reading some modern-day authors who have different views on the status of African Americans today. Contemporary authors to be examined include Cornel West, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, and John McWhorter

Reid Comstock

INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

PHL 318K

The state is a unique thing. It can demand our wealth in the form of taxes, our obedience in the form of laws, and even our lives in the form of the draft. No other entity exerts such power over our lives. In this course, we will explore some of the basic questions about the state through a close study of the foundational texts in the history of political thought. We will begin with Aristotle’s Politics, one of the first works of political theory. Through that work, we will become familiar with one of the main approaches to political thought, an approach which holds that the goal of political life is to promote the common good—the happiness of the citizen body. We will then examine some of the writings of the early modern thinkers who developed an alternative political philosophy, namely, liberalism, which holds that the state’s purpose is not to promote anyone’s good but to protect the freedoms of her citizens. And finally, we will conclude the semester by considering some of the criticisms of liberalism that have been formulated more recently by contemporary thinkers.

In the course of this survey, we will reflect on a number of questions, including the following: What is happiness, the goal at which political life (according to some) is supposed to aim? What authority does the state actually have to intervene in the lives of her citizens to promote their happiness? If the state’s purpose is not to promote the happiness of her citizens, what is its purpose? To secure liberty? To promote equality? What liberties do we in fact have? And why after all is liberty so important? Is civil disobedience ever justified? Should there be a free market? What are the virtues of citizenship? And should the state intervene to help promote those virtues?

Sam Mead

CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES: CORE TEXTS

GOV 312P

Citizens of American liberal democracy live under the oldest codified constitution in use today.  Yet the age of a constitution does not permit us to take its principles for granted.  Far from it.  Each of us, in one way or another, is deeply shaped by these principles – in what we admire and detest, praise and blame, fear and love, in our opinions on the mundane and the lofty alike.  Therefore, if we wish not to take our opinions for granted, if we wish to achieve genuine self-knowledge, and if we are to be responsible democratic citizens, we must engage in a searching and thoughtful analysis of the theoretical basis for the American Constitution and the ways of life it fosters and requires.  Such an analysis is all the more necessary today; liberal democracy now draws criticism not only from abroad but also from home on both sides of the political spectrum.  If we are to meet those criticisms adequately, we owe it to ourselves to recover the original intention of those who shaped our regime.  This course is designed to help students begin such a recovery.  

We will focus on the fundamental principles of American political life: democracy, equality, and liberty.  Our guides – a select few authors of the American political tradition’s foundational texts – will show us how these principles took hold in the US and what arguments were made for and against them.  Our authors will not always agree with each other – they will even vehemently disagree.  But from their agreements and disagreements alike, we can begin to recover for ourselves those crucial questions informing our country, and hopefully start on the path towards genuine intellectual liberation. 

We will read Aristotle, John Locke, The Federalist Papers, select Anti-Federalists, Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Abraham Lincoln, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Constantine Vassiliou

CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES: CORE TEXTS

GOV 312P

This course will introduce students to the study of politics by considering the constitutional order of the United States. The course examines the ideational roots of the United States’ foundational principles as instantiated in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and in classical political and legislative writings that informed the Founders’ Constitutional Designs.

Throughout the semester, students will interrogate the relationship between practical politics and constitutional design by reflecting upon the following questions:  How does the U.S. Constitution lay the foundation of American government and organize its powers in a manner that affects our safety and happiness? In what ways has our original constitutional design been either advanced or frustrated by historical developments with respect to our political institutions? How democratic was the founding? Is democratization always conducive to deliberation? Does institutional rivalry rooted in separation and blending of constitutional powers foster increased deliberation in republican self-government, or does it merely cause political gridlock? When is a constitutional commitment to limited government in tension with the necessities required to protect our civil rights and liberties?

Careful reflection upon these perennial questions in American political thought will enable students to establish connections between foundational ideas in classic political texts and established theories of liberty and equality, in a manner that forges innovative insights on how to strengthen our public institutions.