Ranking: American Politics, Political Processes and Behavior

[AHL]

If there's anybody in this community like me, this thread might attract some interest. To kick it off, how would you rank the following programs in the specific area of American political processes and behavior, based on your knowledge and impression?

UCSD, Northwestern, UNC, Vanderbilt, UW-Madison, Georgetown, UVA, UPenn?

[BigTenPoliSci]

Wisconsin

Northwestern

North Carolina

UCSD

Georgetown

Penn

Virginia

[AHL]

Thank you. Where would Duke go on this ranking?

[BigTenPoliSci]

If you are interested in parties and Congress, Duke is great with Aldrich, Rhode, and McCubbins.

[midwest513]

Easy. 

 

Vanderbilt

UNC

NWU

Gtown

UW

UVA

UCSD

Penn

 

Duke is a weird one. As neither Rohde or Aldrich really publish all that much or are on the cutting edge of the field.

[TakeMyCoffeeBlack]

If you are interested in parties and Congress, Duke is great with Aldrich, Rhode, and McCubbins.

 

Duke is a weird one. As neither Rohde or Aldrich really publish all that much or are on the cutting edge of the field.

 

They do have the Change and Community series that they publish every two years. I'd say they're at least significant in the study of American politics, if not on the cutting edge anymore. Though Rhode's research - some of it unpublished - is really incredible. Actually, meeting him was the first time I got a real sense of what political science is (although I don't study American politics).

[BigTenPoliSci]

I think the jury is still out on Vanderbilt. They historically have a poor placement record, but the big recent hires like Lewis are just now starting to put their Vanderbilt students on the market. Those students might do very well. Bartels is there, and that's clearly a big deal, but is he closely involved with grad students at this point? 

 

I don't go to Vanderbilt, so this is all baseless speculation from an outsider with no special info.

[Display_Name]

If there's anybody in this community like me, this thread might attract some interest. To kick it off, how would you rank the following programs in the specific area of American political processes and behavior, based on your knowledge and impression?

UCSD, Northwestern, UNC, Vanderbilt, UW-Madison, Georgetown, UVA, UPenn?

 

Thanks AHL to start this thread. 

 

My problem is that I am not interested in one area but several, and they don't always go together in the options I have. My main area of interest is comparative political behavior / psychology. In other words, I would like to research aspects related to political behavior / psychology in a comparative perspective. Yet, I also consider a good training in methods absolutely essential.

So, how would you rank the following departments as a combination of all these aspects? [Taking into account how important placement is for prospective grad students, off course!]

 

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UCSD, OSU, WUSTL, NYU, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, Stony Brook, GWU, Oxford, LSE.

[AmericanQuant]

Thanks AHL to start this thread. 

 

My problem is that I am not interested in one area but several, and they don't always go together in the options I have. My main area of interest is comparative political behavior / psychology. In other words, I would like to research aspects related to political behavior / psychology in a comparative perspective. Yet, I also consider a good training in methods absolutely essential.

So, how would you rank the following departments as a combination of all these aspects? [Taking into account how important placement is for prospective grad students, off course!]

 

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UCSD, OSU, WUSTL, NYU, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, Stony Brook, GWU, Oxford, LSE.

 

uh... I think the point of political beharior / psych is to identify universal truths about how humans work politically. Studying it in comparative perspective just sounds like a lot of extra work.  In any case, I can't think of anyone that does work like that in poli sci.

[IRToni]

uh... I think the point of political beharior / psych is to identify universal truths about how humans work politically. Studying it in comparative perspective just sounds like a lot of extra work.  In any case, I can't think of anyone that does work like that in poli sci.

 

I'm not an expert, but a lot of studies have actually shown that political behavior/psych is culture- and context-dependent, thus it makes a great deal of sense to me to study it in a comparative perspective.

 

Thanks AHL to start this thread. 

 

My problem is that I am not interested in one area but several, and they don't always go together in the options I have. My main area of interest is comparative political behavior / psychology. In other words, I would like to research aspects related to political behavior / psychology in a comparative perspective. Yet, I also consider a good training in methods absolutely essential.

So, how would you rank the following departments as a combination of all these aspects? [Taking into account how important placement is for prospective grad students, off course!]

 

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UCSD, OSU, WUSTL, NYU, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, Stony Brook, GWU, Oxford, LSE.

 

If you want good methods training, Oxford, IMO, is definitely not the place. LSE has options available for good methods training (I assume Government, not IR?), but I would say it likely isn't on par with its US counterparts. WUSTL is known for good methods, from what I remember.

[BigTenPoliSci]

Thanks AHL to start this thread. 

 

My problem is that I am not interested in one area but several, and they don't always go together in the options I have. My main area of interest is comparative political behavior / psychology. In other words, I would like to research aspects related to political behavior / psychology in a comparative perspective. Yet, I also consider a good training in methods absolutely essential.

I don't know who does political psychology work that is explicity comparative, but there are lots of folks that take a comparative perspective to the study of public opinion. Offhand, there is James Druckman and Dennis Chong at Northwestern, Alan Gerber and Gregory Huber at Yale, Christopher Wlezien and Robert Luskin at UT-Austin. That is nowhere near an exhaustive list.