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Shape the Future of Politics and Governance

Master of Arts in Political Science

Three students sitting in a classroom

Degree Requirements


The M.A. degree requires a total of 30 graduate credits, including:

  • one methodology course
  • nine graduate-level courses in political science or other fields of interest, upon approval from the graduate studies director

Sample Courses

As a master’s student, you will have multiple courses to choose from when selecting your methodology and elective courses. Below is a small sample of course options, allowing you to draw from a range of foundational topics and skill-building courses.

American Parties and Elections


This course focuses on political parties, interest groups and electoral behavior in the American political context.

Public Opinion and Communication


Learn more about opinion formation; political communication systems; impact of news media, propaganda, and methods; including opinion surveys and content analysis.

Global Migration


Why do people move across international borders, and where do they go? This course looks at how local communities, national governments and international institutions respond. What are the goals of these policies, and are they effective?

Contemporary Normative Theory


Major debates in contemporary democratic theory is the focus of this course. Topics covered include the extent of and rationale for political participation, relation of material and political equality and  tension between liberty and equality. 

Introduction to Quantitative Political Analysis


Cover fundamental quantitative analysis skills such as basic statistics, including measures of central tendency and dispersion, hypothesis testing, indices of association, and bivariate analysis; as well as the application of statistics to political science data.

Fundamentals of Post-Conflict Reconstruction


The goal of this course is to provide a broad overview of the field of post-conflict reconstruction (PCR) from both a theoretical and applied point of view. 

Impacting the public dialogue

At Maxwell, contributing to the public dialogue is a vital form of active citizenship. Political science Ph.D. candidate Nathan Carrington’s commentary on Confederate statues, Brexit and other topics appears in the Washington Post. Nathan’s dissertation investigates Supreme Court legitimacy in an era marked by extreme polarization.

Nathan Carrington ’18 M.A. (PSc)

Ph.D. student, political science; research associate, Campbell Public Affairs Institute

Read “Legally, Confederate statues in public spaces aren’t a form of free speech”

Portrait of political science doctoral student Nathan Carrington
Political Science Department
100 Eggers Hall