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| About the Graduate Program |
| Hiring a Ph.D. |
| Current Grad Students |
| Graduate Senate |
| Graduate Resources |
| FAQ |
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The doctoral program in political science at Washington University is one of the top programs in the country. Graduate students take classes and engage in research with a faculty recognized nationally and internationally as among the most expert, active, and productive in the country. Graduates of the program have joined the faculties of many top universities.
Our graduate program is relatively small. We admit around eight students into the Ph.D. program each year, and most of these complete the doctorate, generally in four to five years. There are approximately forty graduate students currently in residence.
We try to provide financial support for our students during most if not all of their time at Washington University. This support comes from several sources - fellowships awarded by the university, teaching and research assistantships in the Political Science Department, summer teaching, and research fellowships from outside sources such as the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, and so on.
The graduate program prepares students primarily for academic careers in research and teaching. The curriculum is designed to help students master the best work being done in political science, and to become producers of original research themselves. Political Science today makes extensive use of quantitative techniques, and our curriculum aims to provide all students with command of these approaches, to be both literate and numerate, and to be able to employ them in their own research when appropriate.
Our faculty is strong in many areas of political science that are the most dynamic and promising. In American politics, our strengths are in the study of judicial politics, legislative politics, public opinion, and public policy. We also offer first-rate training in formal theory; indeed, our department maintains a national reputation for excellence in this field. Another area of strength is comparative politics, where our faculty combine theoretical expertise on political institutions, social movements, and gender with geographical expertise spanning Latin America, South and East Asia, post-communist Europe and Russia, and the Middle East.
It is important to emphasize that we do not regard these subfields as separate entities. Many of our faculty have research and teaching interests that transcend political science subfields, as well as traditional disciplinary boundaries. We have strong connections with other departments at Washington University, including economics, anthropology, the law school, and with various interdisciplinary research centers on campus.
We support students' professional development not only through our curriculum, but also by facilitating attendance and participation at professional meetings. Our advanced students regularly present papers and serve as panel participants at both regional and national meetings of political scientists. One result of this preparation is a strong record of placing our students. Most of them take university positions, and they can be found in major institutions throughout the country.
Finally, it is worth noting that our department has long had a reputation for collegiality, and for treating graduate students as participants in the enterprise of teaching and research to which the faculty is committed, and from which we get a good deal of satisfaction, and fun.
Printable copy of the Guide to Graduate Study.
LaTeX Thesis Template.
phone : 314.935.5810
fax : 314.935.5856
polisci@artsci.wustl.edu