L&S MAJORS

As a field of inquiry, political science is the study of power, conflict, and association in local, national, and international contexts. The political science major at Berkeley encourages undergraduates to explore such central issues as human nature and the nature of the good society; power and the peculiar ethical problems of wielding it; different kinds of regimes and cultures to be found among the nations, and the difference their differences make; moral foundations of American democracy; causes of war and peace; the history of our important political ideas, such as "liberty," "justice," "community," and "morality"; and controversies that have engaged political thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, St. Thomas and Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau, Locke and Mill, Tocqueville and Marx, Weber and Lippman.

Changes in the Undergraduate Curriculum:

Beginning Fall 2008 for freshmen entering the university and beginning Fall 2009 for entering junior transfer students, there will be new requirements to declare and complete the political science major. Please see the department's undergraduate website for more information.

These changes will not affect students entering Berkeley prior to these respective dates.

New Lower Division Requirements and Prerequisites for the Political Science Major

• Two introductory courses from the following: Political Science 1, 2, 4, 5
• Political Science 3
• One history course (from a pre-approved list)

Departmental Contact

Efrat A. Cidon
cidon@berkeley.edu
(510) 643-2258

Suzanne McDermott
smcd@berkeley.edu
(510) 643-1908

296 Barrows Hall

General Catalog Description

http://sis.berkeley.edu/catalog/gcc_view_req?p_dept_cd=POL+SCI

Departmental Website

http://www.polisci.berkeley.edu/ugrad/ugrad.html

Other Majors to Consider

Classics
Rhetoric
Philosophy
History
Legal Studies
Statistics