Political Science
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Political Science majors have the opportunity to become a member of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society. PSA is the only honor society for college and university students of government in the United States. The Purdue University Delta Omega chapter organizes many activities throughout the year, including faculty and student colloquia, law school forums, resume workshops, and an end-of-the-year initiation cookout! See Purdue'sWelcome to the Department of Political Science. Our faculty currently has research and teaching interests in the fields of political behavior and institutions, public policy, international relations, comparative politics, political theory, and methods. However, we frequently emphasize intersections across fields and across disciplines. Many of our faculty have expertise and interests in more than one field. Several also have formal appointments in disciplines such as Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Economics, African American Studies, Communication, and Sociology. We also have relationships with Psychology and Economics with whom we have dual masters programs, Women's Studies, the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, the Purdue Global Policy Research Institute, the Latin American Studies Center, and the Asian Studies Center. The Purdue Political Science Department emphasizes an interdisciplinary outlook. Aside from its strengths in political institutions, the department also is especially noted for work in the areas of race, ethnicity, gender, and class, in environmental and climate change policies, and in civic norms and social ties relating to crisis situations.
Bert A. Rockman, Department Head and Professor
Rosalee Clawson, professor of political science, has been named head of the Department of Political Science in the College of Liberal Arts. Clawson is known for her work in American politics, especially public opinion, mass media and politics, political psychology, and the politics of race, class and gender. Her appointment is effective July 1.
Recent Publications
S. Laurel Weldon published When Protest Makes Policy, (The University of Michigan Press 2011). What role do social movements play in a democracy?
S. Laurel Weldon demonstrates that social movements provide a hitherto unrecognized form of democratic representation, and thus offer a significant potential for deepening democracy and overcoming social conflict.
Through a series of case studies of movements conducted by women, women of color, and workers in the United States, and other member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), S. Laurel Weldon examines processes of representation at the local, state, and national levels. She concludes that, for systematically disadvantaged groups, social movements can be as important--sometimes more important--for the effective articulation of a group perspective as political parties, interest groups, or the physical presence of group members in legislatures.
Conducting Empirical Analysis: Public Opinion in Action
Rosalee A Clawson, Zoe M. Oxley, (CQ Press; A Division of Sage Publications, 2011). Conducting Empirical Analysis is an ideal way to marry substance with skills, getting students to experience the joy of discovery firsthand. Through straightforward instruction and guided examples, Clawson and Oxley show students how to conduct web-based data analysis using UC Berkeley's Survey Documentation and Analysis (available online for free) to answer questions about party identification or attitude stability, and to measure racial prejudice and political knowledge. Exercises cover a range choice and open-ended questions to mini-research, and statistical analyses, ramping up from multiple-choice and open-ended questions to mini-research projects. An instructor's guide with solutions is available for adopters. 
Keith L. Shimko published The Iraq Wars and America's Military Revolution(Cambridge University Press, April 2010). Many saw the United States' decisive victory in Desert Storm (1991) as not only the vindication of American defense policy since Vietnam but also as a confirmation of a revolution in military affairs (RMA). Just as information-age technologies were revolutionizing civilian life, the Gulf War appeared to reflect similarly profound changes in warfare. A debate has raged ever since about a contemporary RMA and its implications for American defense policy. Addressing these issues, The Iraq Wars and America's Military Revolution is a comprehensive study of the Iraq Wars in the context of the RMA debate.
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