Requirements | Political Economy | Georgetown University

Major Requirements

The major in Political Economy requires eleven courses as follows:

Three of the following four foundational courses in the Government department:

GOVT 1200 U.S. Political Systems or GOVT 1210* [formerly GOVT-020 or GOVT-120]
GOVT 1400 Comparative Political Systems [formerly GOVT-040]
GOVT 1600 International Relations [formerly GOVT-060]
GOVT 1800 Elements of Political Theory or GOVT 1810 [formerly GOVT-080 or GOVT-180]

*Students with a score of 4 or 5 on the AP American Government exam may substitute a “sequential” course in American Politics for GOVT 1200. These courses are marked with the “College/GOVT AmPol Seq” attribute in the Schedule of Classes.

Four foundational courses in Economics:

ECON 2101 Intermediate Micro [formerly ECON-101] *
ECON 2102 Intermediate Macro [formerly ECON-102]
or ECON 2544 International Finance [formerly ECON-244]*
ECON 2110 Economic Statistics [formerly ECON-121]
ECON 2120 Intro to Econometrics [formerly ECON-3001/ECON-122]

* Note: These intermediate courses have prerequisites of Microeconomic Principles and Macroeconomic Principles, as well as Calculus I.

Four courses in Political Economy:

PECO 3010 Analytical Tools for Political Economy [formerly PECO-201]
Two Political Economy electives
PECO 4980 Senior Capstone in Political Economy [formerly PECO-401]

Integrated Writing Requirement

Effective expression of ideas through written work is an essential requirement of the major. Political economists develop models and statistical tools to facilitate analysis. The PECO major requires that students build, solve, test, and present political-economic models. To do this well requires that students achieve transparency and clarity of ideas in their written work. To help students achieve this goal the political economy program requires all PECO majors to take a political economy course that requires a research paper which serves to guide students through the arduous process of creating and communicating (in written form) original research. The research paper for this major is expected to analyze a theoretical or empirical puzzle relevant to political economy.

Note: Effective Fall 2023, all main campus courses have been renumbered using a new 4-digit numbering system.
https://schedule.georgetown.edu/course-renumbering-crosswalk/

Graduating with Honors

In order to graduate with honors in Political Economy, a student must:

Earn a cumulative grade point average of 3.33 and a grade point average of 3.67 in the major by the date of graduation.
Write an honors-quality thesis in the Capstone Course PECO-4980. The paper must receive a grade of “A” from the professor(s) teaching PECO-4980 and must also be approved as of “honors quality” by a designated committee.