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Political Science

American Politics - Senior Thesis

The American Politics subfield explores questions about institutions and political behavior within the American political system. If you are interested in examining the rules and implications of Congress, the Presidency, the Judiciary, or state legislatures, your thesis would focus on institutions. Conversely, if you are curious about how Americans or those within the system respond to these institutions, your thesis would focus on political behavior. A good deal of work also lies at the intersection of institutions and behavior, with theses focusing on issues such as representation and race/ethnicity. Research in American Politics employs a range of methods, including both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Examples of previous capstone projects and the methodology they used:

  • Latine Electorate: Impact of Political Representation, Political Salience, and Group Consciousness in Local Elections (survey research)
  • Donald Trump’s Use of Executive Action to Disenfranchise Human Rights (Case study of executive orders)
  • The Latino Vote: An Analysis Behind the Fastest Growing Voting Bloc in the United States (Quantitative study with publicly available datasets)
  • President’s Effect on Opposing Party Coordination (Quantitative study with publicly available datasets)
  • An Analysis of Political Party Allegiance as Motivation for the Current State of State and Federal Marijuana Legalization (Original data collection)
  • The News Media Experience for Congresswomen: How has sexism and gender stereotypes in the news media portrayed female politicians? (Content analysis)
  • The Effect of Negativity in Campaign Advertisements (Survey experiment)
  • The Effects of Public Perception of Immigration on Bureaucratic Discretion (Quantitative study with publicly available datasets)
  • Examining the Effects of Celebrity Endorsements on Voting Behavior (Case study)
  • The Reformation of Educational Policy in California: An Analysis of Executive Order 1110 and its Effect on Minority Students in the CSU (Case study)
  • Do Attorneys Matter? A deeper look at Supreme Court decision-making (Original data collection)
  • The Affordable Care Act: Political perception and real-world consequences viewed through the lens of Obamacare (Survey)
  • Divided We Stalemate: Legislative Gridlock and the Tea Party in the U.S. House of Representatives (Quantitative study with publicly available datasets)

Each of these thesis projects is available in the Undergraduate Journal of Political Science.