Spring Quarter 2025

This course introduces students to the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as agents of advocacy and socio-political, economic and cultural change. The emphasis is on a) examining ways in which the NGO sector operates at the local, national and international levels, b) understanding the range of issues NGOs promote and advocate for; c) examining the tools and strategies they use in their advocacy; and, d) assessing the impact NGOs have on the policy making process as well as the targted communities.

The course is designed for students interested in questions of advocay, activism and nongovernmental interventions, all of which are central to the dynamic cultural and political landscapes where NGOs operate. Some of the NGOs we will explore focus their advocacy on promoting political rights, gender equality and minority rights, while others focus on ending poverty, violence, human trafficking, exploitative labor, health problems and environmental degradation.

About the Instructor: 

Professor Kamal A. Beyoghlow (BEY-O-LOU) received his PhD degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. His Master’s degree in International Relations from Tufts University, and his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Diego State University.

He served as a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Office of the U.S. Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State (DOS) initiating and implementing U.S. counterterrorism policy and strategy and was also the Principal Representative of DOS to President Obama’s Periodic Review Board for the Guantanamo Combat Detention facility in Cuba where he helped resettle detainees abroad. He taught national security and international relations at the Marine Corps University in Quantico where he also served as Director of the Strategic Level of War course. He started his U.S. Government career as an analyst of psychological military operations for the U.S. Army.

He also served as a political analyst at the CIA and was a tenured faculty of Grand Strategy and Chair of the Department of Culture and Regional Studies at the U.S. National War College, the highest military academy in the United States.

Transportation moves us. Jobs, school, health clinics, grocery stores, recreational facilities, and more would be impossible to get to without adequate service and infrastructure. Efficient, safe, and sustainable transportation systems are essential to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of cities and regions. But history shows that the benefits of transportation have not been distributed equitably, and historically marginalized communities have had to bear disproportionate costs from transportation as well. More recently, planners and policymakers have taken up the challenge of creating a more sustainable equitable transportation system. Achieving these goals, however, can stand in opposition to other important goals like efficiency and effectiveness. The purpose of this class is for students to come away with an understanding transportation planning and policy in the United States, using the Washington, DC, metro area as a case study for examining the challenges, tradeoffs, and opportunities inherent in advancing sustainable and equitable transportation systems.

About the Instructor: 

Jesus Barajas is a Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis. He received my PhD in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley. Broadly speaking, his research focuses on transportation equity. He's interested in three main questions: Why and how do people travel? What accounts for the differences we see in travel behavior and safety, particularly for historically marginalized population groups? And what do those differences mean for planning and policy?

This course will examine the importance of Washington D.C.’s museums, monuments, libraries, newspapers, and archives in shaping American nationalism. Students will be introduced to key arguments and texts that have been used by scholars and public intellectuals to define the concept of “nationalism” in modern history. We will examine how theorists of nationalism argue that institutions were constructed for the very purpose of shaping and reinforcing nationalism for citizens. A key component of the class will involve visiting select institutions in Washington to measure the robustness of the theoretical arguments about nationalism. Are the theorists correct in their interpretations of how nationalism is formed and strengthened? Or do these scholars overlook key dimensions and meanings of nationalism in the contemporary world?

About the Instructor: 

Vinayak Chaturvedi is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India (2007) and the editor of Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial (2000) and The Pandemic: Perspectives on Asia (2020). He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Cambridge.

Do Twitter or Facebook threaten democracy? What is the difference between “fake news” and journalism? Should the media report what people want to know or ought to know? Does objectivity exist?

This seminar examines the extraordinary changes to political communication and journalism over the past half century and the consequences for American democracy. Biden’s presidency and the aftermath of Trump’s are a great backdrop to assess the news media’s mission, goals, and biases. We will look at the media’s incentives to fuel controversy, politicians’ efforts to manipulate – or lie to -- the media, and how the digital revolution has fundamentally restructured – for better and worse -- the future of political communication. Classes will combine lecture, discussion, and exercises with an emphasis on current developments. Readings include scholarly articles, a book of your choice, and a steady diet of news and journal pieces to keep up with political developments.

Students will complete a major research project on a newsworthy topic which will be written in journalistic form in addition to shorter writing and speaking assignments. All assignments are aimed at sharpening research and writing skills, with a focus on identifying target audiences and communicating with clarity. Assignments may be adjusted to meet individual campus requirements. 

About the Instructor: 

Professor Marc Sandalow (msandalow@ucdc.edu) is a senior faculty member at the University of California’s Washington Program. He worked as a journalist for nearly four decades, traveling with and interviewing candidates, and attending multiple Democratic and Republican nominating conventions. He spent 21 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, the last 10 years at the paper’s Washington Bureau Chief. He is the author of three books, including “Madam Speaker,” a biography of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He is currently a political analyst for KCBS radio in San Francisco and Hearst Television and writes a regular column for the San Francisco Examiner. He has been with UCDC since 2008.

Many Americans can name several presidents and even have opinions on “good” versus “bad” presidents. But what do presidents actually do, what resources and limitations do they have in their ability to act, and how do we measure their performance and our expectations for their leadership? With a divided Congress and record polarization, what can we expect during the next year and a half of a Biden/Harris administration? This course will put the modern presidency in historical and theoretical context, drawing on a variety of readings and approaches to determine which framework best explains presidential (in)action. At its core, this class is about the question of executive power in democratic government and how we understand what we see happening just down the street from the UC Washington Center. In addition to studying and reflecting on the theme of presidential power, we will also consider the limits to this power and how presidents achieve their goals. Ultimately, we aim to understand the work of the presidency and some of the different perspectives by which we might analyze or assess presidents and their administrations. 

About the Instructor: 

I am a Ph.D. of American government and politics with specializations in the American presidency, public policy, and polarization. My research focuses on presidential governance via executive orders and how political factors influence the ability of presidents to issue their most significant orders. I have taught UCDC’s presidency seminar since Fall 2017. While earning my degree at the University of Maryland, I taught classes about public policy and Congress to students who had internships related to those fields in a format similar to the UCDC program. Outside of the classroom, I work at Community Change & Community Change Action, non-profit organizations focused on building a movement led by everyday people to create change in their communities and across the country. As the Electoral Data Manager, I work with many different teams and partner organizations to identify target audiences and track the work we are doing in communities affected by injustice.