Political Science

Purpose: To support teaching and research on the undergraduate level, the graduate level through the Ph.D., and post-doctoral and faculty research. The Political Science Department offers three undergraduate tracks: general political science, pre-law, and global politics. Students working on their Masters' degree can select from three tracks: American Institutions and Processes; Comparative and International Politics; and Administration, Justice, and Applied Policy Studies. Ph.D. students' Preliminary Examination fields include American Institutions, Public Law, Political Theory, International Politics, Comparative Politics, Public Policy Studies, Public Administration, Political Psychology, Gender, Justice and Politics, and Criminal Justice. Methodology is emphasized at all levels. The department also is the locus of the Criminal Justice Program, offering courses of study leading to the BA and MA in Criminal Justice. Students who wish to continue their graduate studies to attain a Ph.D. may do so through the track in criminal justice (a Ph.D. through the Criminal Justice program is currently under review).

While the primary interest in these fields is centered in the Political Science Department itself, faculty and students in other university departments and colleges such as Sociology, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Communications, Comparative Ethnic Studies, Economics, and Business have specific and overlapping interests in one or more areas of political science. Also the trend toward studying the relationship of political science to the above allied disciplines has resulted in the extension of the discipline's traditional fields into further subdivisions such as: political geography, political anthropology, political psychology, political sociology, and political economics. Thus, there are a number of courses such as: social science research methodology, statistics and quantitative analysis, law, diplomacy, theory, development politics, media politics, gender politics, environmental politics, and policy analysis which are shared by all social science disciplines and are served by the same library resources.

The programs and classes of the Political Science Department are enhanced by relationships with two research units: the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy & Public Service (the Foley Institute) and the Division of Governmental Studies and Services (DGSS). The Foley Institute was established at Washington State University in 1995. The mission of the Institute is to foster Congressional studies, civic education, public service, and public policy research in a non-partisan, cross disciplinary setting. DGSS extends the resources represented in the department's teaching and research personnel beyond the classroom and into public service. The DGSS maintains a small collection of current social science journals and other resources that serves the unit's intern program for students interested in practical government work experience.

1. Languages: English is the most commonly collected language. Materials in German, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian and selected other European languages may be purchased for some aspects of comparative government, international politics and organization and political theory. The intensity of collection in these languages should roughly reflect the geographical divisions inherent in the field and the departmental emphasis on specific areas or countries. A limited body of contemporary materials in Chinese and Japanese is purchased. Works published in other languages are ordinarily purchased in English translation only, except for official publications (Government Documents) which are purchased regardless of language, if appropriate.
2. Chronological Guidelines: Emphasis is on contemporary affairs. Certain areas such as political theory, comparative government, and international politics may require acquisition of resources dealing with earlier periods.
3. Geographical Guidelines: There is a strong emphasis on American government and politics from the national to the local level. Strong interests also exist for Western Europe, Russia and the Successor States, Eastern Europe, East and South Asia, and Latin America. The governments and politics of developing countries are also a major focus.
4. Treatment of the Subject: Juvenile materials and introductory texts are not ordinarily purchased. Upper level texts and popular materials are purchased on a selective basis. Biographies of political figures are collected broadly.
5. Types of Material: Most materials collected are in the form of electronic resources (generally bibliographic and full-text databases), books, and periodicals, and include publications of official local, national and international bodies. Proceedings of conferences and congresses, society transactions and reports, statistical compendia, directories, and handbooks are of importance. Microform material are selectively purchased and should provide primary source material that is either unavailable or too expensive in "hard copy," such as the papers of important political figures, political parties, government documents, periodical backfiles, etc. Machine-readable datasets are made available through the Library's membership in ICPSR (The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research).
6. Date of Publication: The emphasis is on current materials. No preference is given to original printings over reprints in retrospective buying.
7. Other General Considerations: Political Science students and faculty also have at their disposal the primary resources located in the Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections division and the vast array of non-print materials available through the Media Materials collection. The Libraries' membership in the Orbis-Cascade Alliance allows WSU students, faculty and staff to borrow books from 25 other libraries through the Summit online catalog. In addition, the University's reciprocal agreement with the University of Idaho enables faculty, staff and students to make use of their Law Library and their main library. Other resources include no-fee websites accessible through the World Wide Web, loan privileges through the Center for Research Libraries for extensive holdings of primary resources such as foreign documents, microform collections and foreign newspaper backfiles and full membership and free access to the ICPSR repository of machine-readable datasets. Machine-readable datasets from ICPSR are made available to faculty and students directly and upon request. Material is made available without qualifications to the general guidelines.