Welcome to the Department of Political Science

For over half a century, the Department of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara has been home to top scholars engaged in cutting edge research. Housed in a world-class university widely known for its inter-disciplinarity, the department is committed to rigorous quantitative and qualitative research, as well as to normative theory.

The department also prides itself on first-rate teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  Our research and teaching cover the traditional fields of international relations, comparative politics, American politics, political theory, and research methods. In collaboration with faculty in other departments and research centers on campus, we also emphasize two cross-cutting areas: politics of identity and politics of the environment.