About the Department
Philosophy
The study of politics aims to better understand the many faces of power in the many collective projects of human experience. Therefore scholars and students in the Department address a great variety of topics central to public life, such as democracy, freedom, justice, conflict, social movements, and institutional reforms.
Given the breadth of these concerns, the Politics Department is dedicated to studying politics within social-scientific and broader humanistic traditions of scholarly inquiry alike.History
The Politics Department was among the inaugural Departments (then called Boards) at the founding of UC Santa Cruz in 1965. Since then, hundreds of women and men have earned a degree in Politics at UCSC. The Department’s graduate program admitted its first students in 2000, and conferred its first Ph.D. in 2006. Throughout its history the Department has maintained distinctive traditions and pursued novel approaches in the study of politics.
Programs
Today, the Politics Department offers an undergraduate major and minor in Politics, as well as a combined major in Politics / Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS) It is also the home of a growing Ph.D. program. Lastly, the Department is the administrative home for the interdisciplinary Legal Studies program
Additional Information
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Politics Department
Merrill Faculty Services
UCSC
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
(831) 459-2855
(831) 459-3125