Majors
Minors
Departmental Honors
In the spring semester, juniors who have achieved a GPA of 3.0 or higher in the major and overall are invited to apply to the department for placement in Political Science 400, Senior Thesis. Students who fall below a 3.0 GPA may be granted an exception to apply on a case-by-case basis. Majors who have achieved a GPA of 3.500 or higher in the major and overall may be considered for honors. After the student completes and formally presents the thesis, the political science faculty determine whether to grant honors on graduation.
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Past Honors Thesis Projects:
2012
Randi Phillips, “Tocqueville on the Condition of American Labor and Industry and its Contribution Toward Democratic Despotism.”
2013
Kristofer S. Lyon, “Red Batons: Explaining Variation in Police Use of Force at Public Protests in the United States.”
2014
Maya Gold, “Sheep and Scandal.” Maya conducted a survey experiment to test alternative theories of how political partisans respond to scandals within their own party.
2017
Katie Kowal, “Can Information Lead to Voice? A Study of Broken Schools and Public Response.”
Nick LeSage, “WordPress and Chill: Defamation Law’s Chilling Effect in the Digital Age.”
2018
Rafael Swit, “Representing the Public Will in the Age of Misinformation.”
2019
Benjamin Bardman, “Power and Theory in 1984: The Political Theory of George Orwell.”
Jacob Bell, “Skinning the Cat: Understanding Voter Preferences on Corporate Tax Policy.”
Alaina Haig, “The Relationship Between Christian Religiosity and Public Opinion on Education Spending.”
2020
Celia McDonald, “Is This Seat Taken? The Effect of Gender Quotas on Symbolic Representation.”
2021
Jacob Muscarella, “Partisan Motivated Reasoning, Information Framing, and Attitudes toward Congress.”
2022
Paige Underwood, “Movement or Myth? An Empirical Study of Progressive Prosecution In the United States.”
Alex Webb, “A Concervative Legal Bastion? Federalist Society Judges and the Fourth Amendment.”
2023
Erika Anderson, “Indoctrination or Education? How Religion, Politics, and Identity Shape Book Banning in the U.S. Public Schools.”
Nick Biesterfeld, “Politics and Hustlers University: The Effect of Andrew Tate on Gendered Nationalism.”
Frankie Spurbeck, “Riding to the End of the Line: The Effect of High School Transportation Policy on Adult Transit Ridership.”
Political Science is located in John R. Howard Hall on the Undergraduate Campus.
MSC: 12
email polisci@lclark.edu
voice 503-768-7450
Chair Leah Gilbert
Political Science
Lewis & Clark
615 S. Palatine Hill Road
Portland OR 97219