Comparative Politics
Introduction and Requirements



Choosing a Subfield

First Field: Your choice of first field specialization should be determined by the likely topic of your dissertation, the area you wish to concentrate your conceptual and empirical knowledge, and the substantive topics you want to specialize in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level. You should seek to develop the highest level of proficiency in your first field because it will be widely recognized by other scholars as your primary field of expertise. Competence in this field must be demonstrated by fulfilling all coursework requirements and the defense of a comprehensive first field examination (details vary per subfield of political science).

Second Field: Your choice of second field specialization should be determined by your interest in a substantive, thematic, or methodological area in which you wish to gain a high level of proficiency in support of your dissertation research and/or to specialize in for teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level. You should seek to develop a high level of proficiency in your second field because it will be widely recognized by other scholars as your secondary area of expertise. Competence in this field must be demonstrated by fulfilling all coursework requirements and the defense of a comprehensive second field examination (details vary per subfield of political science).

Third Field: Your choice of third field specialization should be determined by the substantive, thematic, or methodological area in which you wish to gain a moderate level of proficiency that will support of your dissertation research while not being a central part of it. Competence in this field must be demonstrated by fulfilling all coursework requirements of a third field (details vary per subfield of political science) but no third field comprehensive examination exists for any subfield of political science.


Description of the Subfield

The primary focus of the study of Comparative Politics is the political institutions and behaviors of countries other than the United States (though we do not preclude studying America in comparative perspective). The kinds of questions that comparativists seek to answer include: Why do authoritarian states democratize? Why do some countries effectively develop while other are mired in poverty traps? Why do citizens’ values and attitudes toward the state, religion, the welfare state, and to democracy differ across the world? Are political parties the only viable form of representation in contemporary democracies? Why do some parties run on policy programs and others on patronage? Can citizens use courts to hold governments accountable? Under what conditions do civil wars and revolutions erupt?

The Department of Political Science at the University of Florida offers a comprehensive and challenging program in Comparative Politics. The faculty is committed to a pluralistic view of the field and seeks to train its students in a broad range of methodologies from the experimental and statistical to the interpretive. Whatever methods our students use, we emphasize the conscious choice of appropriate methods for the questions that they seek to answer, and the most up-to-date training available. Many faculty members also share a commitment to mixed methodological perspectives in order to increase confidence in the generality of findings. The field maintains a strong commitment to understanding politics in the context of time and place. Students are encouraged to develop deep knowledge about the areas which they study, including linguistic abilities that will allow them to conduct fieldwork. At UF this is facilitated by cooperation with three nationally recognized Title VI centers in the fields of African, European, and Latin American studies.

At UF, members of the Comparative Politics field conduct research in a variety of areas: democratization and regime change, political violence, political economy, institutional design, political development, ethnicity, legal institutions, the state and bureaucracy, and mass attitudes and behavior. Our faculty investigate these questions in many regions, but with particular focus on the politics of Europe, Russia, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

In their first semester, comparativists entering the program are required to take the introductory seminar (CPO 6091) as a gateway to the other seminars. Its purpose is to expose students to the major theoretical traditions that have shaped the study of comparative politics. In the course of the semester, students are introduced both to landmark works and the diversity of approaches to research in the field.

In subsequent semesters, students will choose a variety of thematic and area seminars. The thematic seminars cover a broad range of topics and focus on important research questions in the field. They will include readings drawn from the experience of many regions and broad cross-national perspectives. The area seminars serve two principal purposes. The first is to provide students with a deeper understanding of the politics of a particular region of the world. The second is to enable the student to understand how comparativists both apply and derive general theory and concepts in the context of the politics of specific countries. The current offerings of the program are listed below:

Introductory Seminar:

Thematic Seminars:

Area Seminars:


Field Requirement Summaries

First Field Requirements (5 courses for a total of 15 credits)

  1. CPO 6091: Comparative Politics Seminar
  2. Four seminars: at least two substantive seminars and at least one area seminar

More detailed information on first field requirements can be found here.


Second Field Requirements (3 courses for a total of 9 credits)

  1. CPO 6091: Comparative Politics Seminar
  2. Two thematic seminars, unless area seminar is petitioned and approved

More detailed information on second field requirements can be found here.


Third Field Requirements (2 courses for a total of 6 credits)

  1. CPO 6091: Comparative Politics Seminar
  2. One seminar

More detailed information on third field requirements can be found here.


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Department of Political Science, University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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