The Department of Political Science covers the four main subfields in the discipline:

• American politics focuses on the behavior of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government; state and local politics; the influence of public opinion, interest groups, and political parties on decision-making; and issues of race and gender.
• Comparative politics focuses on the comparative study of the behavior of governments and political institutions, non-governmental actors across the world, and on the relationships between political and economic factors in different cultures and societies.
• International politics considers how political decisions are made in a world without a central authority above the nation-state. Recent emphases include a significant role for international law, norms, and organizations.
• Political theory seeks to analyze both historically and philosophically the origins and underpinnings of political values.

Additional Resources

Our faculty and students profit from the many outstanding institutes, centers, and programs at Brown that relate to the study of politics. These include the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions, the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the Master of Public Affairs program, the Urban Studies Program, the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Middle East Studies, Development Studies, the Population Studies and Training Center, and Africana Studies.