The Department of Government and Politics offers a Ph.D. degree in political science, intended primarily for those planning academic careers. Students can specialize in American politics, comparative politics, international relations, and political theory. In addition, students can study in depth more specialized fields such as public law, national security, public policy, political psychology, international and inter-ethnic conflict, international political economy, urban politics, post-Soviet and post-communist studies, East-Asian studies, environmental politics, and the politics of advanced industrial societies. Offered as a second field only, Political Methodology and Formal Theory focuses on different approaches to empirical political researchincluding statistical modeling, experimental approaches, and qualitative researchas well as mathematical techniques of theory development such as game theory, social choice, and formal modeling. Students may concentrate in formal theory, quantitative methods, or mixed methods research. Graduate courses include: Scope and Methods of Political Science Research, Quantitative Methods for Political Science, Advanced Quantitative Methods, Formal Theories of Politics, Advanced Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Multilevel Analysis.