Welcome
Welcome to the Department of Political Science at Rice University. This website is designed to provide information on our department members, their research, department activities, and our degree programs. We offer programs for students pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees with specializations in American Politics, Comparative Politics, or International Relations.
Researchers discover spouses select partners based on social and political attitudes
Research led by Rice's John Alford has discovered that spouses select partners based on social and political attitudes
Stein named Baker Institute fellow in urban politics
Robert Stein, the Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science and a nationally recognized political analyst and expert on elections, has been named the new fellow in urban politics at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
Study shows that defensive military alliances enhance peace
Countries that enter into defense pacts with other nations are less likely to be attacked and not more likely to attack others, according to new research by Professor of Political Science Ashley Leeds and Jesse Johnson, a Rice graduate student in political science.
Local election database helps political science LEAP forward
Though 96 percent of elected officials in the U.S. represent local rather than state or federal jurisdictions, the field remains a relatively unexplored area of study, in part because the nearly 90,000 local governments document and account for elections in different ways. Armed with recent grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology, Rice's Melissa Marschall is hoping to change that.