• Politics Portraits

    Politics

  • Contact Us

    General Admission Contact
    The New School for Social Research
    Office of Admission
    72 Fifth Avenue, 1st floor
    New York, NY 10011
    212.229.5600 or 800.523.5411
    SocialResearchAdmit@newschool.edu

    Admission Liaison
    PolSciLiaison@newschool.edu

    Department of Politics
    6 East 16th Street, room 711A
    New York, NY 10003
    212.229.5747 x3090
    Fax: 212.229.5473

    Mailing Address
    79 Fifth Avenue, room 711A
    New York, NY 10003 

    Chair
    Victoria Hattam

    Senior Secretary
    Aaron Neber

    Student Advisor
    Lydia Nobbs

    Politics Student Handbook

  • Admission Links

  • The Department of Politics specializes in critical, historical, and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of politics. Faculty and students bring the leading edge of scholarly debate and analysis into conversation with pressing issues of our time. Together, we engage in political and intellectual life at the university, throughout New York City, and as a part of extensive global research networks.

    The Department of Politics curriculum represents five major fields of study: political theory, American politics, comparative politics, global politics, and political economy. Faculty and students pursue projects across fields in courses that reflect our faculty’s main areas of research in contemporary and historical context, including:

    • Democracies in theory and practice
    • History of political thought
    • Political economy and capitalism
    • Mobility and migration
    • Social movements
    • The Anthropocene and political ecology
    • Laws, rights, and constitutions

    The MA is an immersive two-year experience that leads students to both top doctoral programs as well as careers in policy, government, and NGOs. The selective PhD program is home to award-winning students whose scholarship, public writing, and activism often go hand in hand.

    Workshops and events are an important and regular part of departmental intellectual life. They include the Politics Speaker Series, the Theory Collective, the Global Politics Workshop, and the Comparative Politics Initiative. Faculty also help lead interdisciplinary institutes, including the India China Institute; the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, and Social Thought; and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, which provide important venues for students to engage with intellectual currents around the university. The Union of Political Science Students helps organize graduate intellectual exchanges and graduate student social life.

    Distinguished visiting scholars regularly join our faculty to assist with dissertation supervision and other student work. Faculty members and closely affiliated faculty have included Hannah Arendt, E. J. Hobsbawm, Ira Katznelson, Charles Tilly, and Aristide Zolberg. Learn more about becoming a visiting scholar.

  • Politics Degrees

    The Department of Politics offers an MA and a PhD degree.

  • Featured Courses

    Courses in Politics combine a deep theoretical framework of political ideas with real-world implications and applications on personal, national, and global scales. An interdisciplinary approach helps shape a better and more complete understanding of how politics work, why policies work, and where cutting-edge approaches might take us next.

  • Scholars and Work

    Explore political work that’s rooted in theory and supported through data:

  • Take The Next Step

Submit your application

Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

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