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Political Research Seminar (395-0-24)

Topic

Clean Energy Politics

Instructors

Elizabeth L Thom

Meeting Info

Scott Hall 201 Ripton Room: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

This course examines local political reactions to the transition from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy sources in the United States. Our class will be conducted as a "reading" and "doing" seminar. We will read scholarship from sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics that examines the drivers, obstacles, benefits, and challenges associated with the transition toward clean and renewable energy. The reading will set students up to develop hypotheses about how this transition is playing out among local communities. Building on this substantive knowledge, in the "doing" component students will work in teams to conduct case studies of energy transition politics in communities where the clean-energy build-out is taking place. Through this course, students will develop substantive knowledge about US clean energy politics, and they will develop research skills, including how to select and conduct a case study, how to design survey instruments and interview guides, how to conduct interviews, how to analyze qualitative and quantitative data, and how to visualize and report results. At the end of the course, students will draft an original political science research paper that builds on the data they collect during the term.

Learning Objectives

There are five main learning objectives for the course. By the end of the quarter, students should be able to:

  1. Identify the major goals of the energy transition and explain how different energy sources and constituencies will be impacted by it.
  2. Describe and analyze the opportunities and challenges for domestic clean and renewable energy production given the structure of the American political system.
  3. Assess and critique the different policy tools used in the past and present to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
  4. Evaluate pathways for policymakers to address the adverse effects of the energy transition on firms, workers, and communities.
  5. Develop and draft an original research paper grounded in principles of social science research design. This involves formulating hypotheses; reading and synthesizing prior literature; collecting and analyzing data; organizing findings and writing them up succinctly and clearly; and presenting the research to others.

Teaching Method

Seminar

Evaluation Method

Weekly writing assignments that build toward the final research paper; in-class final presentations.

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for Political Science & Environmental Policy & Culture majors and minors until the end of preregistration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone who has taken the prerequisites.