Mar 29, 2024  
2017-2018 Graduate Catalog 
    
2017-2018 Graduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Political Science and International Relations (PhD)


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Requirements for the Degrees


Each student will complete a minimum of 38 credits.

2. Track Courses: 15 credits


Each student will choose and declare one of three tracks within the global governance program by the end of their first semester. Track requirements consist of the completion of two required track courses and three elective track courses. The tracks and courses are listed below:

Track 1: The United States and the World


Track 2: Global Processes and Transnational Issues


Track 3: A Comparative Perspective


3. Elective Courses and COGGS: 11 Credits


Students must take three additional courses over the course of their program and the Colloquium on Global Governance and Society (COGGS - POSC 850 ) for one credit each spring of their first two years.

Students may take no more than one 3-credit independent study in their first two years of coursework. In order to do so, students need to submit to the Director of Graduate Studies a petition and a course design for review and approval. Elective courses may include 6 credits taken outside the Department with the prior approval of the Director of Graduate Studies. In addition, each semester additional courses (POSC 867s) may be offered and may count toward one or another track or as an elective.

4. MA Writing Requirement


Students not moving further into the PhD program will prepare a major research paper, usually initially for one of their graduate seminars. For the purposes of this requirement, the Department understands a “major research paper” to be one that addresses an important and well-defined topic, demonstrates mastery of the pertinent literature, strives to make an original contribution to knowledge, and is presented in a coherent and professional manner. In meeting this requirement, students are to identify an appropriate academic journal and write the paper as if they were preparing a manuscript for submission to that journal. This research paper is to be handed in to the professor for whom the paper was originally written, or the most appropriate professor, in May of the second year, as part of the completion of the MA requirements. It is the prerogative of that professor to determine whether the student’s work meets the test of this definition. Students will register for POSC 899  MA Long Paper Course (0 credits) in the spring of their second year to facilitate completion of this requirement. MA students who wish to pursue a PhD must notify the Director of Graduate Studies no later than 1st February of their (the admission deadline) intention. (For students pursuing a PhD, this major research paper is the Long Paper, and a different procedure applies. See below).

Requirements for the PhD Degree


1. All requirements listed for the Master’s Degree, plus 24 additional credits to total 62.

2. Secondary Track Requirements: 9 Credits
All students will choose a secondary track in the fall semester of their third year. In this secondary track students must complete one of the two required courses and two track electives, or both required courses and one track elective.

3. Research Seminar: 3 Credits
All students must complete a research seminar in conjunction with the Colloquium on Global Governance and Society (COGGS - POSC 850 ) in the spring semester of their third year. This seminar will provide a significant research experience in addition to the speaker series. Students are expected to complete and present a draft of their dissertation by the end of COGGS.

4. Philosophy of Science and Research Design (POSC 816): 3 Credits
This is a required course, to be taken in the fifth semester.

5. Additional Research/Candidacy Credits: 9 Credits
Students will enroll in 9 credits of POSC 969  (dissertation credits).

6. Long Paper Defense
All students who wish to pursue their doctoral degree are required to undertake an oral exam by March 15th of their
second year. This involves students making an oral presentation of the paper they are submitting in fulfillment of the master’s writing requirement. They will be examined by a three-person committee consisting of the faculty member for whom the paper was originally written (serving as chair), and two other faculty members best able to comment on the substance of the paper (as approved by the Director of Graduate Studies). The paper should meet the expectations of the MA writing requirement - i.e. it should be a “major research paper” etc. Students should identify their long paper committee members in their third semester and should have an initial draft completed and under review by their committee chair by the start of the winter semester. Students should revise their paper over winter session and schedule their paper defense to take place before March 15th of their fourth semester. A written assessment of student performance in their defense is transmitted to the Graduate Performance Review Panel, as part of the assessment materials for moving on to the third year. Students who do not pass the Long Paper defense may receive an MA degree upon completion of the requirements for that degree. PhD students who defend their long paper successfully also receive MA degrees. Students will register for POSC 899  (0 credits) in their fourth semester to facilitate completion of this requirement.

7. Graduate Performance Review Panel
All students who wish to pursue their doctoral degree will be reviewed by this review panel in early April of their second year. The Panel will decide to accept or reject students in their bid to enter the dissertation proposal and field exam phase. This panel is comprised of the Director of Graduate Studies and the Graduate Admissions Committee. Materials to be used in the review include: a student’s GPA and course record, faculty evaluations of students in seminars and as graduate assistants, and the written assessments of student performance in their Long Paper defense. Notice of approval of a student by the review panel will be sent to the Office of Graduate Studies. Students who are rejected by the Review Panel will be recommended for dismissal from the graduate program by the Office of Graduate Studies.

8. Skills Requirement
All candidates for the PhD degree shall demonstrate competence in one language other than English OR an expanded methods competency. Procedures for certifying language competence are supervised by the Director of Graduate Studies, and are completed via a translation exercise assessed by a Department or University faculty member with competency in the given language and should be completed before the dissertation proposal defense. As candidates whose first language is other than English have already demonstrated competence in a second language by appropriate scores on the TOEFL exam, this requirement shall be deemed met in such cases. To complete this requirement via further methods training, students shall take one additional research methods course (beyond 815 and 816) or participate in an external methods course/workshop.

9. Third-Year Field Exams
Students will take two “take home” written field exams over the course of two weeks late in the spring semester of the third year. While the exact dates are to be determined, students should expect these exams to begin approximately 1st May. In the first week during a 56-hour period commencing 8 a.m. Monday and ending at 4 p.m. Wednesday, students will write responses for Part I - the Primary and Secondary track field exam. On the following Monday during an 8-hour period, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. students will write their responses for Part II of the field exam, which tests students on their research specializations.

These exams expect students to demonstrate a mastery of the literatures relevant to the two tracks they have studied. Students should expect to use at least the summer between the second and third years, and the winter session and spring semester of the third year to prepare for these exams. Reading lists constructed by faculty will be made available to students. The fields are based around the three existing tracks (America and the World, Global Processes and Transnational Issues, Comparative Perspectives). A Field Exam Committee will be created for each field and will prepare field reading lists, questions and do the grading. Field reading lists will also include global governance/transnational readings relevant to each field and will have integrated committees to enable grading of these materials. The field exams are administered by the Director of Graduate Studies and the Graduate Admissions Committee.

  1. Part I consists of the primary and secondary track field exam questions and is divided into two sections. Section 1 tests students on the Primary track. Students must answer two questions from this section. Section 2 is the secondary track field exam and students must answer one question from this section.
  2. Part II is a section tailored to the individual research specializations of students (e.g. the politics of a particular region, a major sub-field, a variety of theory). Students must submit their own reading list for this section and nominate two appropriate faculty to write and grade questions for them by 30 September of their third year. Students must answer one question from Part II
  3. Answers are read and graded by the respective Field Exam Committee and, in the case of Part II, by those nominated faculty. Grades are then reported to the Director of Graduate Studies. Possible grades on the exam are Distinction, Pass, Deficient and Fail. Distinction and Pass are considered passing grades. Results of the field exams will be made known to students as soon as all exams have been graded, usually within two to three weeks.
  4. For Part I, Section 1 (the Primary Track), students who receive a mark of deficient on a single response by 2 out of 3 faculty members who grade the exam must retake that question, regardless of the third faculty member’s grade. If a student receives a failure on a single response by 2 out of 3 faculty members who grade the exam, the student must retake this entire part of the exam. The Director of Graduate Studies will administer a new set of questions for the student to answer. For Part 1, Section 2 (the Secondary Track), students who receive a mark of deficient or failure on a response by 2 out of 3 faculty members who grade the exam must retake that question, regardless of the third faculty member’s grade. The Director of Graduate Studies will administer a new set of questions for the student to answer. For Part II, the Specialization field exam, if a student receives a mark of deficient or a failure on a response by 2 out of 3 faculty members who grade the exam, then that student must retake that question, regardless of the third faculty member’s grade. The Director of Graduate Studies will administer a new set of questions for the student to answer. For any question(s) a student retakes, there will only be a pass/fail option. If, on the second try, the student fails even one question, then the student fails the field exam requirement and will be recommended to the Office of Graduate Studies to be terminated from the program.
  5. Students who wish to sit for the field exams must be in good standing, have at least a 3.0 GPA, and have no “Incompletes.”

10. Admission to Candidacy Exam (Dissertation Proposal Defense)

  1. A PhD student shall be officially admitted to candidacy upon successful completion of a candidacy oral examination by a faculty committee (oral defense of the dissertation proposal). Although the precise form of the dissertation proposal will vary from case to case, it is expected to include a clear statement of the problem and an explanation of its significance, a discussion of the methods proposed to investigate the problem, and a full discussion of relevant literature.
  2. The candidacy examination should be held at the end of the spring semester of the student’s third year, or the beginning of the fourth year, and not later than October 1 of the student’s fourth year. Funding for the spring semester of the fourth year is contingent upon having passed the candidacy examination.
  3. The candidacy examination committee shall be convened and chaired by the student’s dissertation chair and shall consist of members of the student’s proposed dissertation committee. Normally students are expected to select a dissertation chair from faculty whose primary appointment is in the Department. In exceptional circumstances, students may petition the Graduate Policy Committee for approval to have someone whose primary appointment is outside the Department chair the dissertation committee. In deciding whether or not to grant approval, the Graduate Policy Committee shall take into account the needs of the student and the Department.
  4. Other members of the Department are welcome to participate as non- voting members of the candidacy examination committee. The candidacy examination shall be announced and copies of the dissertation proposal shall be made available to all faculty at least one week in advance of the examination.
  5. The candidacy examination committee is charged with determining the student’s fitness for advancement to candidacy. The main question the committee has to answer is, ‘Is this student prepared to write an acceptable PhD dissertation?’ In seeking to answer this question, the committee’s focus shall be on the student’s dissertation proposal, which shall be made available to all members of the Department at least one week in advance of the examination.
  6. If, in the judgment of the committee, the student has passed the oral examination, he or she shall be admitted to candidacy, and shall begin work on the dissertation (see Section 9).
  7. If, in the judgment of the committee, the student has not passed the candidacy examination, the committee may direct the student to (a) rethink, rewrite, and resubmit the proposal prior to a re-examination by the committee; (b) undertake remedial work in research design and methodology; or (c) any combination or variation of the above that the committee deems necessary. In the event that additional work is required, the committee will discuss with the student a reasonable time frame for completion of the necessary work. A written statement completed by the student’s dissertation adviser should set forth the nature of the work to be undertaken by the student and the time frame that was agreed upon. This shall be sent to the student, circulated to the faculty members who participated in the oral examination and become part of the student’s permanent file. At the conclusion of the agreed upon time period, the committee will reconvene to assess the student’s progress toward candidacy. The committee may determine that the student is unable to advance to candidacy and may be recommended to the Office of Graduate Studies for termination from the program.

11. The Dissertation

  1. A PhD dissertation is a manuscript that reflects “the results of original and significant research written in a scholarly and literate manner worthy of publication.”
  2. Students are expected to consult closely and regularly with members of their dissertation committee, particularly the committee chair.
  3. Upon completion of the manuscript, a final oral examination - or “dissertation defense” - must be passed. Ordinarily, students will be asked to summarize the major findings of their research and evaluate the significance of these findings for the field more generally. The student shall then be called upon to defend the findings in the face of questions from members of the dissertation committee and other members of the academic community who choose to attend. If, after deliberating, the dissertation committee is unable to reach agreement on whether the student has successfully defended the dissertation, the committee will adjourn after explaining the nature of their objections and providing suggestions on how these might be satisfactorily addressed with guidance from the dissertation chair. It shall be the responsibility of the dissertation chair to reconvene the group to reconsider the revised product.
  4. Detailed guidelines for the preparation and presentation of the dissertation are described in Regulations Governing Theses and Dissertations, which may be obtained from the Office of Graduate and Professional Education or online http://www.udel.edu/gradoffice/polproc/.

12. Teaching Experience
Advanced PhD students may be given the opportunity to teach their own classes in the Department, in particular during their fifth or sixth years (see below). Advanced PhD students may also find teaching opportunities at nearby universities.

13. Conference Experience

Advanced PhD students are also encouraged to present their work at national and international conferences. Funding from the Department and the Office of Graduate Studies may be applied for to help defray the cost of conference participation for those students presenting papers.

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