This course will develop the skills to prepare, analyze, and present data for policy analysis and program evaluation using R. In Quant I and II, students are introduced to probability and statistics, regression analysis and causal inference. In this course we focus on the practical application of these skills to explore data and policy questions on your own. The goal is to help students become effective analysts and policy researchers: given the available data, what sort of analysis would best inform our policy questions? How do we prepare data and implement statistical methods using R? How can we begin to draw conclusions about the causal effects of policies, not just correlation? What should we keep in mind to make sure we’re using “data for good”, especially when the focus is on marginalized communities using data on personal identity?

 

Please review the most recent syllabus before completing this application. 

The purpose of this registration form is to help manage the waitlist and make sure that all admitted students are prepared to succeed, which means: (1) understanding and satisfying the DataCamp prerequisites before the start of the semester, if applicable; (2) understanding the applied microeconometrics focus of the course; and (3) committing to completing the weekly course responsibilities, including group data project work during the latter half of the semester. You should not be deterred if you are brand new to R or found Quant II challenging, as long as you are committed to putting in the work.

 

Intelligence issues have been at the center of US security policy controversies since Benedict Arnold spied for the British during the American revolution.  In the past two decades, critics have blamed U.S. intelligence agencies for failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks, missing the mark on Iraq’s WMD capabilities, and underestimating the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programs. Critics also have zeroed in on the collection and covert action side of the intelligence business, questioning the efficacy and morality of harsh interrogation techniques, the disclosure of NSA’s collection capabilities by Edward Snowden, or the implications of cyber for all aspects of intelligence work. 

During and since the Trump administration, allegations of involvement of intelligence agencies in US domestic politics have raised fundamental questions—some old, some new--about the relationship between the intelligence community and policymakers. What role should the intelligence community play in the formulation and implementation of US foreign policy and broader national security strategy?  Should retired senior intelligence officials stay outside the political fray?

Recent major intelligence failures—Russia’s failure to assess the magnitude of Ukrainian resistance and Israel’s flawed assessment of HAMAS’ intentions—have revived the central question faced by all intelligence services: are intelligence failures inevitable—and if not, can they be averted? Through a  review of these and other historical cases, the class will also will consider how one might best define “success” and “failure” in the intelligence business, and who should make these determinations?

This seminar provides an overview of the key elements of the intelligence business: human and technical collection (including cyber), covert action, analysis, and the relationship between the Intelligence Community and policymakers. Course readings focus largely on the period from World War II to the present, with a review of several cases of intelligence failures. It also covers ongoing efforts to reform and improve the U.S. intelligence community and the uneasy role of clandestine and covert intelligence activities in a democracy.

There will be three guest speakers in this course--practitioners who will discuss their first-hand experiences in human intelligence (espionage), interacting with the President, and a third speaker on either geospatial or cyber issues. Students also will engage in a crisis simulation exercise designed to expose them to the challenge of making important analytic assessments on a short deadline with limited intelligence information. 

 

This seminar will bring together professors and select students from three schools to discuss how different disciplines solve cybersecurity issues. Classes will cover the technical underpinnings of the Internet and computer security; the novel legal aspects from technology, crime and national security; and the various policy problems and solutions involved in this new field.

 

Was the pro-life narrative strategy a decisive factor in overturning Roe v. Wade? After countless videos of police brutality, why did the video of George Floyd’s murder dramatically accelerate the pace of cultural and policy change? After years of campaigns to reduce teen pregnancy, how was it that a TV show became one of the main drivers of reducing teen pregnancy to the lowest point in recorded history? After losing 31 state referendums, why did a new narrative approach enable the gay marriage campaign to start winning nationwide? These questions and storytelling examples are part of broader social impact campaigns which combined the right mix of strategy and narrative to create change. A social impact campaign is one that creates a significant change that addresses a pressing social issue. Often, there is too little focus on the power of narrative to change behavior and drive action.

 

This class will explore all aspects of social impact campaigns that harness the power of “effective” stories to engage audiences and prompt action. Additionally, we will investigate how corporations and brands develop campaigns and how they partner with the government, foundations and NGOs. Students will have the chance to question some of the leading creators/practitioners as they create their own social impact campaigns.

 

 

The class compares a variety of proposals that have been advanced to promote constitutional world order.  We begin with traditional conceptions of the balance of power among independent “Westphalian” states and then explore arrangements designed to produce alternative forms of constituted international and world order.  These include liberal and authoritarian internationalism, collective security through the League Covenant and the United Nations Charter, John Rawls’s Law of Peoples and various other contemporary models of international law, global governance networks and global democratization. 

In addition to assessing the particular merits and limitations of these visions of world order, we will examine the underlying principles of international politics, ethics and constitutional design that characterize these efforts to establish rules for the globe.

Pre-requisites:  A course in public international law or a course in international relations.

 

Industrial policy is returning, and this is not just a US phenomenon China, the European Union (EU), Japan, and Korea have each increased subsidies in support of key industries, while a number of countries, such as Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) have been updating their national lists of sensitive sectors that are required to remain in the hands of domestic firms and individuals New export control measures have been introduced by the United States and other nations, and a combination of legal and policy tools are being utilized to support priority sectors, limit, and direct foreign investment and collaboration, and alter trade and investment flows Most of these measures have been introduced in the name of national security or some combination of national security, supply chain resilience, and climate change The significant US measures have introduced tension between the US and some of its allies, and of course, geopolitical tensions with China are a significant feature of the background to the measures—even as the world community finds it hard to get together and address the global challenges that it is now facing (climate change etc.) Against this background, this year’s international trade regulation seminar will examine the root causes of this phenomenon, the legal and policy instruments that are being utilized by the US and other jurisdictions, and more generally the consequences for the world trading system and multilateral cooperation The seminar will be composed of a mixture of SIPA and CLS students.

 

 

This course explores skills needed for sophisticated spreadsheet development and problem solving in Microsoft Excel. Topics include implementing advanced logic using complex formulas, managing complexity with Excel's auditing features, leveraging lookup functions leveraging and calculated references, parsing and cleaning raw data, refining data structure, and constructing and leveraging PivotTables. The course does not focus on specific models or applications, but instead explores general concepts and techniques that can be flexibly applied to different solutions in Excel. 

Prerequisite 2: 

Students are expected to have some basic exposure to R and the Tidyverse package in particular, or a demonstrated aptitude for object-oriented programming languages. It's totally OK if you are brand new to R, we just ask that you do a bit of preparation before our first class.

Personal interest in the course