The political science program prepares students for professional work in political science and history and supports the liberal arts mission of the College. Whether serving a major or a core curriculum requirement, courses are characterized by attention to careful reading of texts, analysis of important issues of interpretation and meaning, and effective writing. Most classes are moderate in size, which allows ample opportunity for discussion and the development of critical thinking. These habits of mind are essential for success in professional life and prepare students for an active and engaged life as a citizen of our region, the nation, and the world.

A major in political science prepares students for graduate study or for careers in teaching and public service. In recent years, political science students have gone on to law school, graduate study in political science and history, political consulting, and careers in government and public service.

Major Learning Outcomes

Political Science
Students who graduate with a major in political science will be able to:

1. Analyze, interpret, and critically evaluate major political issues and/or historical events;
2. Demonstrate familiarity with the major theories and thinkers in the field;
3. Understand the intellectual importance of academic research;
4. Frame research questions designed to produce independent and cogent analysis;
5. Assess, use, and synthesize different kinds of evidence from a variety of academic sources;
6. Understand the difference between opinions and substantiated scholarly claims;
7. Effectively utilize and appropriately cite academic sources;
8. Write papers essentially free of errors in grammar, mechanics, and spelling.

Major in Political Science

A minimum of 36 semester hours is required, including:
POL 101: Introduction to Political Science
POL 203: American National, State, and Local Government
POL 321: History of Political and Social Thought

Choose one of the following:
HST 211: American History I
HST 212: American History II
HST 260: Montana and the West
HST 263: America at War
HST 309: The United States in World Affairs
HST 311: History of Western America
HST 363: Recent America
HST 365: American Environmental History

Choose one of the following:
HST 103: History of Civilization I
HST 104: History of Civilization II
HST 232: The World Since 1945
HST 303: Reformation, Absolutism, and Enlightenment Europe, 1500-1789
HST 304: The Age of Revolution Europe, 1789-1914
HST 313: Europe Since 1914
HST 324: History of Russia to 1861
HST 325: History of Russia and the Soviet Union Since 1861
HST 356: Indigenous Resistance and Survival
HST 358: Topics in History
HST 370: Medieval History

Choose one of the following:
POL 405: Mass Movements and Global Terrorism
POL 422: Revolutions and Revolutionaries
POL 427: The Crisis of Modernity
POL 490: Seminar (cross-listed with HST 490)

Choose a second course from the preceding list, or one of the following courses:
HST 491: Seminar in Global History
HST 492: Seminar in American History
HST 493: Seminar in European History

Fifteen elective semester hours from political science or history are also required.

Minor Learning Outcomes

Students who graduate with a minor in political science will be able to:

1. Analyze, interpret, and critically evaluate major political issues and/or historical events;
2. Demonstrate familiarity with the major theories and thinkers in the field;
3. Understand the intellectual importance of academic research;
4. Frame research questions designed to produce independent and cogent analysis;
5. Assess, use, and synthesize different kinds of evidence from a variety of academic sources;
6. Understand the different between opinions and substantiated scholarly claims;
7. Effectively utilize and appropriately cite academic sources;
8. Write papers essentially free of errors in grammar, mechanics, and spelling.

Minor in Political Science

A minimum of 18 semester hours is required, including:
POL 101: Introduction to Political Science
POL 203: American National, State, and Local Government
POL 321: History of Political and Social Thought

Choose one of the following:
POL 405: Mass Movements and Global Terrorism
POL 422: Revolutions and Revolutionaries
POL 427: The Crisis of Modernity
POL 490: Seminar

Two elective courses from political science are also required.

Minor in Political Science (Government) Education

A minimum of 21 semester hours is required, including POL 101, POL 203, POL 321, and 12 semester hours of electives. In addition, students must complete the professional education program for secondary teaching (grades 5-12) as described in the “Education” section of the catalog.

Minor in Pre-Law

See the “Pre-Law” section of the catalog.

HST 103 – History of Civilization I

Semester: Fall
Semester hours: 3

This course examines the major political, social, economic, and cultural developments in world civilizations from the earliest human societies to 1450 CE. Taking a global approach, students will consider the past through a variety of historical viewpoints and different ways of interpreting history, crafting their own interpretations of the developments that have shaped our world.

HST 104 – History of Civilization II

Semester: Spring
Semester hours: 3

This course examines the major political, social, economic, and cultural civilizations from 1450 CE to the present. Taking a global approach, students will consider the past through a variety of historical viewpoints and different ways of interpreting history, crafting their own interpretations of the developments that have shaped our world.

HST 211 – American History I

Semester: Fall
Semester hours: 3

This course is an exploration of vital issues and ideas in American history from the contact of cultures through Reconstruction. Students will consider such issues as the formation of American identities, native responses to European colonization, slavery and race relations, the growth of democracy, and United States political culture from the Revolution through the Civil War.

HST 212 – American History II

Semester: Spring
Semester hours: 3

This course is an exploration of vital issues and ideas in American history from the Gilded Age to the present. Students will consider such issues as industrialism, reform movements, and the role of America in the world.

HST 232 – The World Since 1945

Semester: Spring; Even years
Semester hours: 3

This course explores the major developments in world society from the end of World War II to the present. Major themes of emphasis include the Cold War, decolonization, revolution, nation-building, civil war, social movements, political repression, genocide, terrorism, and globalization.

HST 260 – Montana and the West

Semester: Spring; Odd years
Semester hours: 3

Students survey the history of Montana in its regional context, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries.

HST 263 – America at War

Semester: Fall
Semester hours: 3

This course will examine the selected moments in the nation’s wartime experiences with a focus on how wars influenced American social and political life, including the growth of the American state, threats to civil liberties, changes in the lives of women and workers, and the effects of war on racial and ethnic minorities. We will also explore aspects of the ethical dimension of warfare, both in combat and on the home front.

HST 303 – Reformation, Absolutism, and Enlightenment Europe, 1500-1789

Semester: Spring; Even years
Semester hours: 3

This course will trace the major political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural developments in Europe from the late Middle Ages to the eve of the French Revolution.

HST 304 – The Age of Revolution Europe, 1789-1914

Semester: Fall; Even years
Semester hours: 3

This course provides a study of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era, the movement toward national unification in Germany and Italy, and the impact of political democracy, capitalism, socialism, and imperialism on European culture.

HST 311 – History of Western America

Semester: Spring; Even years
Semester hours: 3

The development of the American West from the first explorations to the 20th century is examined.

HST 313 – Europe Since 1914

Semester: Spring; Odd years
Semester hours: 3

Students examine political, cultural, social, and economic developments in Europe from the beginning of World War I to the present. Themes under examination will include nationalism, industrialization, capitalism, liberalism, imperialism, socialism, secularization, and urbanization as well as the period’s major wars and revolutions.

HST 324 – History of Russia to 1861

Semester: Fall; Even years
Semester hours: 3

Focusing upon the medieval origins of early East Slavic societies and the formation of the Muscovite state and Russian Empire, this course emphasizes the political, economic, social, and cultural components of pre-revolutionary Russia from the 10th through the 19th centuries. Special attention will be given to themes of state-building, ethnicity, empire-building, and the role of gender, class, religion, and ideology.

HST 325 – History of Russia and the Soviet Union Since 1861

Semester: Spring; Odd years
Semester hours: 3

This course offers an in-depth exploration of Russian and Soviet political, social, and cultural history from the abolition of serfdom in 1861 to the present. Themes of emphasis include the rise of democratic and revolutionary movements in the late tsarist period, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, industrialization and collectivization, political repression, late Soviet society, Cold War relations, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and post-Soviet society and culture.

HST 356 – Indigenous Resistance and Survival

Semester: Fall; Even years
Semester hours: 3

This course is an exploration of the variety of military, political, and cultural responses by indigenous people to colonialism, especially in response to settler societies such as those in the Americas, South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand. Topics will include violence, strategies of resistance and accommodation, the formation of racial identities, environmental degradation, and ongoing struggles for autonomy in a global context.

HST 358 – Topics in History

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 3

This course is an exploration of selected historical ideas, issues, and events. Topics will vary according to instructor interest and student demand, but will focus on central historical texts, important interpretive issues, and emerging scholarship. If the topic is different, students may take this course more than once.

HST 363 – Recent America

Semester: Fall; Odd years
Semester hours:

This course is an exploration of major currents in American society since 1945, including war, reform, the rise of welfare, civil rights, Vietnam, feminism, and conservative reaction to these issues.

HST 365 – American Environmental History

Semester: Fall; Odd  years
Semester hours: 3

This course examines the interrelationship of human society and nature in American history. Topics will include ecology as it relates to European conquest of the Americas, Native American peoples, public lands policies, American national character, technological society, conservation, and the modern environmental movement.

HST 370 – Medieval History

Semester: Fall; Odd years
Semester hours: 3

This course examines the history of Europe and the Mediterranean world during the Middle Ages (ca. 300-1500), beginning with the transformations of the Roman world in late antiquity and concluding with the origins of the early modern era. Special attention will be devoted to religious, social, and cultural topics, including the Roman papacy, monastic life, the crusades, the problem of heresy, the rise of persecutions, peasant society, and trends in late medieval spirituality.

HST 491 – Seminar in Global History

Semester: Fall; Odd years (every other odd year)
Semester hours: 3

Through readings and research, this course explores selected topics in global history. Topics may vary from year to year, but each seminar will engage an important topic in global history with attention to trends in historical research and a variety of historiographical approaches to the selected topic. Students will be guided through the research process and complete a major research project.

Prerequisite: junior or senior standing

HST 492 – Seminar in American History

Semester: Fall; Even years
Semester hours: 3

Through readings and research, this course explores selected topics in American history. Topics may vary from year to year, but each seminar will engage an important topic in American history with attention to trends in historical research and a variety of historiographical approaches to the selected topic. Students will be guided through the research process and complete a major research project.

Prerequisite: junior or senior standing

HST 493 – Seminar in European History

Semester: Spring; Odd years (Every other odd year)
Semester hours: 3

Through readings and research, this course explores selected topics in European history. Topics may vary from year to year, but each seminar will engage an important topic in European history with attention to trends in historical research and a variety of historiographical approaches to the selected topic. Students will be guided through the research process and complete a major research project.

Prerequisite: junior or senior standing

POL 101 – Introduction to Political Science

Semester: Fall
Semester hours: 3

This course provides an examination of the basic concepts of political science in light of contemporary political events. Students approach such important concepts as freedom, power, democracy, authority, revolution, and dictatorship.

POL 203 – American National, State, and Local Government

Semester: Spring
Semester hours: 3

This course provides an analysis of the American system of government on three levels. Students will examine the origins of our system of government, the nature and role of our Constitution with its functional and territorial distribution of powers, and the importance of government at the three levels.

POL 204 – Political Geography

Semester: Fall; Even years
Semester hours: 3

This course introduces students to political geography as a field of inquiry, including the scholarly context, core ideas, terminology, major controversies, and complexities associated with taking a geographical perspective on political issues. Students will develop tools to think critically about the mutually constitutive relationship between politics and places, as well as the conflict-laden politics of human-environment relations. The readings, videos, music, and other materials used in the course are drawn from political geography, political science, the humanities, government and multi-lateral agencies, and substantive news and media outlets (e.g., Economist, National Geographic, and The World Bank). Course topics include the changing relationships between territory, sovereignty, and identity; globalization and environmental governance; and the paradoxes and contradictions of post-9/11 geopolitics.

POL 220 – Political Leadership

Semester: Spring; Odd years
Semester hours: 3

This course will survey various theories of leadership as applied to politics, as well as explore the biographies of the men and women who have shaped both local as well as global events. Theory is grounded to practical application, with an emphasis on the various styles, methods, and particular contexts within which individual leaders have come to power and how the exercise thereof has altered or reinforced their original goals and programs.

POL 225 – Film and Politics

Semester: Spring
Semester hours: 3

This course serves as an introduction to the study of politics and power relations through the modern medium of cinema. Films are treated as texts and cover a wide-ranging and diverse set of themes, such as electoral politics, race relations, education, censorship, political violence, capitalism, and gender issues.

Prerequisite: ENG 120

POL 299 – Directed Reading

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 1-3

This course allows a student to devise and pursue independent study in an area agreed upon in consultation with, and supervised by, a faculty member. Students should be either a major or minor and have a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or greater.

POL 301 – International Relations

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 3

Students examine an analysis of the way nations interact with one another and how the necessities of power and the desire to regulate the use of power in the international arena have influenced 20th-century world politics.

Prerequisite: a lower-division history course

POL 309 – The United States in World Affairs

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 3

This course studies United States foreign policy and diplomacy, including other American international activities, from 1917 to the present. This course is cross-listed with HST 309.

POL 313 – Environmental Politics

Semester: Spring; Even years
Semester hours: 3

This course examines political problems associated with the human impact on the natural environment: pollution, natural resources, public lands, land use, energy, cultural/social justice, and population.

POL 318 – Visions of Utopia

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 3

This course is an exploration of the persistent, yet elusive, quest for the ideal system of governance. The course explores how “perfect” systems have been visualized in theory, attempted in practice, and often lamented in retrospect. Readings are drawn from a variety of historical examples, dating back to the ancient world, and include several utopian and dystopian novels that illuminate the inherent conflict between necessary order and perfect freedom.

POL 321 – History of Political and Social Thought

Semester: Fall
Semester hours: 3

The development of political and social ideas from ancient Greece to the present is examined.

Prerequisite: POL 101

POL 327 – Race and Class in America

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 3

Despite substantial efforts to provide economic opportunity for all Americans, a large and ethnically diverse underclass remains. In an effort to explain this phenomenon, this course directly confronts American perceptions on wealth, poverty, and race in order to more fully understand the confluence and contradictions among them. Course materials will include historical accounts, personal narratives, and sociopolitical analyses that explore concepts such as whiteness and blackness and explain the cultural and structural factors that limit life chances and prevent many from claiming their share of the elusive “American Dream.”

POL 405 – Mass Movements and Global Terrorism

Semester: Spring
Semester hours: 3

An advanced seminar that focuses upon the sociocultural causes of violent mass movements. Terrorism is more properly understood as a specific type of political violence, and thus the course will seek to explain and understand the dynamic power struggles that underlie the phenomenon. Ultimately, strategies of counterterrorism and the prospect for peaceful reconciliation will be considered.

Prerequisite: POL 327 or permission of instructor

POL 412 – Constitutional Law

Semester: Fall; Even years
Semester hours: 3

A case-method approach to the landmark decisions of the Supreme Court, with an emphasis on the doctrine of judicial review and the role of the Court in interpreting the Constitution and shaping American legal culture. The course will focus on the exercise and limitations of federal power in the areas of the economy, civil rights, and individual liberties, as well as the Constitutional basis on which statutes and other regulatory provisions are adjudicated. Special attention will be given to Constitutional clauses related to free speech, due process, and equal protection under the law.

Prerequisite: POL 203 or permission of instructor

POL 422 – Revolutions and Revolutionaries

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 3

An advanced seminar that seeks to answer one of the most important questions in the field: why men rebel. Relying heavily on primary sources, readings will include works of political theory, political biography, and narrative accounts of various historical examples of revolution as well as several profiles of the men and women engaged in both violent and non-violent rebellion.

Prerequisite: POL 327 or permission of instructor

POL 427 – The Crisis of Modernity

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 3

The dawn of the scientific revolution is much heralded as a turning point in world history, at which time man was emancipated from earlier forms of traditional rule. However, the divorce between tradition and the modern world is wrought with challenges and contradictions, such as the often-dichotomous relationships between religion and secularism, science and faith, and technology and nature. A primary goal of this course is to question whether mankind is headed in the right direction or if modernity has resulted in a net-negative for the human condition.

Prerequisite: POL 327 or permission of instructor

POL 450 – Internship

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 1-12

This course is a guided work experience in an already established place of business. The student must arrange the internship in agreement with the instructor and the Office of Career Services. The internship should relate to the student’s major or minor area of study. Contract is required. Pass/no pass grading.

Prerequisite: junior or senior standing

POL 483 – Research Assistantship

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 1-3

As an advanced research course designed primarily for students considering further study at the graduate level, this is an opportunity for students to work individually and in close consultation with a member of the faculty, based on the supervising advisor’s particular research agenda. Principal tasks include data collection, literature review, preliminary analysis, and/or other duties stipulated in an initial course contract.

Prerequisite: junior or senior standing

POL 490 – Seminar

Semester: Spring
Semester hours: 3

This seminar explores such topics as the methods and materials of research, trends in historical research and writing, and a survey of historiography and the philosophy of history. A major research paper is required. This course is cross-listed with HST 490.

Prerequisite: POL 321 or permission of instructor

POL 499 – Directed Reading

Semester: Offered at discretion of department
Semester hours: 1-3

This course allows a student to devise and pursue independent study in an area agreed upon in consultation with, and supervised by, a faculty member. Students should be either a major or minor and have a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or greater.

Prerequisite: junior or senior standing

• Matthew O’Gara, Professor
• Timothy Lehman, Professor