Welcome! Here you’ll find a full list of all Fall 2024 First-Year Seminar (FSEM) offerings. Browse through the pages of classes, select a course from the first drop down menu, or browse by subject area. Please note that this site shows the FSEMs regardless of whether or not they are full, so there is no guarantee that a course will still be open at the time of your registration
Democracy appears to be a fragile thing. Around the world in recent years, many democracies have backslid and autocracy is on the rise. A diminished trust in government and the perceived gulf between policy and popular opinion resulted in the United States being downgraded from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in 2016.
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In this class, we will examine political polarization in the United States from both an institutional and behavioral perspective. Quotes like the one above suggest that Americans are hopelessly polarized, pushed by our partisan predispositions to vote for or against a candidate regardless of whether we like that candidate’s issue positions or personal characteristics.
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