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Cesar Chavez. Ronald Reagan. Indira Gandhi. Mao Zedong. Sojourner Truth. These are all such different people with different political goals, and yet they all have something in common: they all understood the nature of power and political action, and they used their knowledge to change the world. A political science degree from Portland State University will give you the tools to understand power and to make changes in the world that you believe in. Maybe these changes will be very small, maybe they will be very big, but the knowledge you gain from getting a degree in political science will give you what you need to take your vision for our neighborhoods, city, state, country, or world and put it into action.

Your classes in the political science department will teach you the nature of power in our world through an option of lenses based on your interest. We offer a wide variety of perspectives so that you can pick the approach that is most interesting to you.

• In our American Politics classes, students learn about the political system of the United States, as well as the history, culture, and social movements in this country. Classes in this field also engage the local politics of Portland as well as state politics in Oregon.
• In our Comparative Politics classes, students learn about the domestic politics of other countries. If you wonder about how the Prime Minister is chosen in Germany, how Augusto Pinochet -the former dictator in Chile- overthrew the democratically elected government, or how government restrictions affect the lives of women in Iran, this is the field for you.
• Our International Relations classes teach our students to understand how governments interact with one another. This sometimes means the study of war, but more often means learning about the role of international organizations and international law in facilitating negotiation and communication among countries.
• Students in our Political Theory classes read books that challenge commonly held views of what constitutes politics and how political change occurs. In exploring contending ideas of power, justice, authority, freedom, and so forth, political theory students develop their own theories of politics.

At Portland State University, we offer four specializations in American Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Theory, along with two Political Science tracks in International Development and Public Service, and two minors in Law & Legal Studies and Political Science.