Department of Politics at Princeton University

The Department of Politics (co)sponsors a number of formally organized research programs at Princeton.

• The Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice organizes conferences and other activities focused on fostering peace and justice around the world.

• The James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions supports scholarship on political thought, constitutional law, law and religion, and public policy.

• The Program for Quantitative and Analytical Political Science is intended to facilitate research and education at the interface of social science and more quantitative and mathematical fields of study like statistics, game theory, economics, and computer science.

• The Princeton Laboratory for Experimental Social Science (PLESS) (co-sponsored with the Department of Economics, with additional support from the Provost and the Woodrow Wilson School) is a laboratory specially built to support experimental investigations of human reasoning, judgment, decision-making, and behavior.

• The Research Program in Political Economy (co-sponsored with the Department of Economics and the Woodrow Wilson School) supports scholarship at the intersection of economics and political science; the program sponsors workshops, conferences, fellowships, and student grants.

Faculty and students in the Politics Department also benefit from other University centers and programs.
 

• The Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs brings together faculty from Politics, Economics, Sociology, Psychology, many area studies programs and departments, and Princeton's engineering programs, as well as its own specialty faculty in such fields as urban policy, law and policy, science policy, and demography.
   
• The University Center for Human Values is the campus focal point for scholarly inquiry into ethics and political philosophy, sponsoring fellowships for dissertation research in the study of human values, as well as a series of distinguished guest lectures and a number of visiting senior scholars each year.
   
• The Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, formed in 2003 by the consolidation of various programs specializing in regional politics and economics, aims to integrate international and regional studies at the University into informed and coherent perspectives on global affairs.
   
• The Center for the Study of Democratic Politics (co-sponsored with the Woodrow Wilson School ) attracts specialists in American politics, comparative politics, constitutional law, and political theory, all of whom share an interest in the mechanisms by which political communities achieve or fail to achieve democratic goals and principles.
   
• The Program in Law and Public Affairs (sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School and the University Center for Human Values) combines a visiting legal scholar program and an extensive speaker series to bring cutting-edge legal scholarship into the Princeton community.
   
• The Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance (sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School) brings visiting scholars and speakers together with political scientists, economists, sociologists, and historians to investigate questions surrounding the processes of globalization and their impacts on international governance.

• The European Union Program at Princeton (co-sponsored by PIIRS, the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, and WWS) holds events and activities at Princeton University relating to the European Union and European politics generally. These include lectures and seminars by outside speakers, course development, research conferences, policy analysis, public commentary, visiting fellows, student activities, and informational outreach.

•  The Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia (sponsored by WWS) fosters scholarship on the political, cultural, and religious issues confronting policy initiatives in the predominately Muslim world of Central and West Asia and North Africa.

• The Center for Health and Wellbeing (sponsored by WWS) focuses on domestic and international health policy concerns that are of great interest to political demographers, health economists, comparativists, and political theorists with an interest in human rights and the normative issues underlying health policy processes.

• The Research Program in Development Studies (sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School) brings together scholars who share a common interest in the economics and politics of the development process.

• The Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School) joins scientists from almost every field with political scientists, ethicists, sociologists, economists, and historians, to investigate the many forms and consequences of interaction between science and policy making.

• The Project on Democracy and Development promotes research and teaching on the relations between political institutions, representation, economic reforms, and inequality. Sponsored by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), the Project hosts an inter-disciplinary seminar series, conferences, and a visiting fellows program.

• The Princeton-Harvard China and the World program (CWP) is committed to integrating the advanced study of China’s foreign relations into the field of international relations, by bringing exceptional young scholars whose work bridges China studies and international relations together with recognized scholars in these fields.

• The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) (sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School) supports teaching, research, and publication about issues related to and emerging from self-determination, especially pertaining to the state, self-governance, sovereignty, security, and boundaries with particular consideration of socio-cultural, ethnic, and religious issues involving state and non-state actors.

• The Center for International Security Studies (CISS) (sponsored by WWS) provides a home for the study and debate of national and international security at Princeton and supports a variety of educational, research, enrichment, and outreach activities with the intent of generating new knowledge on issues of fundamental importance and educating the next generation of strategic thinkers and decision makers. It also seeks to establish research and policy links with other institutions around the world.

• Workshop on Arab Political Development (affiliated with PIIRS) Committed to inclusive analysis of the political obstacles and opportunities facing the contemporary Arab world, the Workshop on Arab Political Development seeks to become a premiere intellectual hub with an impact on scholarly debates and policy.