Democratic Imperfections
Examines imperfections of real-world democracy, including causes, effects, and proposed reforms, while engaging with empirical political science methods.
Summary
What you’ll be able to do
Gain familiarity with the frontier of the empirical literatures on inequalities in political participation and representation, and on state capacity and bureaucratic accountability.
Develop theoretically grounded, testable hypotheses.
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary research designs.
Formulate and implement compelling research designs to evaluate hypotheses.
Replicate published empirical work and write referee reports.
Source: UW Guide
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Prerequisites
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- Graduate/professional standing
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Spring 2027No instructors recorded for this selection.
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Student experience
the class
Democracies routinely fall short of their textbook ideal. Examine selected imperfections of real-world democracy - their causes, their effects, and the reforms proposed to address them. Consider who participates, who is represented, and whether democratic governments deliver. Engage the frontier of empirical political science, paying close attention to problems of measurement and causal inference.
difficulty & workload
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Topics
- Political participation and representation
- State capacity and bureaucratic accountability
- Measurement and causal inference in empirical political science
Skills
- Developing theoretically grounded, testable hypotheses
- Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary research designs
- Formulating and implementing research designs to evaluate hypotheses
- Replicating published empirical work and writing referee reports
Grades
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Explore recorded gradesRecorded 2026-10-14
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Model & dataset provenance
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"observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
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