Courses at the Harvard Kennedy School

All Government concentrators are allowed to meet up to 2 of their 3-4 elective requirements through courses at the Harvard Kennedy School, chosen from the list below. Please note that secondary-field requirements cannot be met through coursework at HKS. Enrollment in HKS courses is always at the discretion of the HKS professor; please refer to the HKS website for additional instructions.  

Concentrators do not need to request permission to count the courses below for concentration credit. Concentrators may petition to count other HKS courses for concentration credit by completing the following form: https://bit.ly/Gov_Elective_Credit_Petition.

Please note that as of July 2024, no classes taken through cross-registration are counted toward a student’s official undergraduate GPA (unless a student receives a failing grade). See the FAS Registrar’s webpage on cross-registration for more information.

Harvard Kennedy School Courses Preapproved for Government Concentration Credit, 2025-26

Business and Government Policy 

BGP 100	The Business-Government Relationship in the United States	Roger Porter	Spring
BGP 610	The Political Economy of Trade	Robert Lawrence	Fall

Democracy, Politics and Institutions 

DPI 120	The U.S. Congress and Law Making	David King	Spring
DPI 122	Becoming a Policy Entrepreneur in the United States	David King	Fall
DPI 207	Philosophy of Technology: From Marx and Heidegger to AI, Genome Editing, and Geoengineering	Mathias Risse	Spring
DPI 415	Comparative Politics	Pippa Norris	Fall
DPI 418	The Rise of Authoritarian Populism	Pippa Norris	Fall
DPI 450	The Political Economy of Transition in China	Anthony Saich	Fall
DPI 543	Corruption: Finding It and Fixing It	Jeeyang Rhee Baum	Fall
DPI 703	Democracy: The Long View and the Bumpy History	Alex Keyssar	Fall

Development and Economic Growth

DEV 130	Why Are So Many Countries Poor, Volatile, and Unequal?	Ricardo Hausmann	Fall
DEV 308	Social Institutions and Economic Development	Michael Woolcock	Spring

International and Global Affairs 

IGA 103	Global Governance	Lotem Bassan-Nygate	Fall
IGA 105	International Law and Global Justice	Kathryn Sikkink	Fall
IGA 109	Negotiation and Diplomacy	Nicholas Burns & James Sibenius	Spring
IGA 217	U.S. Foreign Policy in a Global Age	Fredrik Logevall	Spring
IGA 229	Sex and Violence in Global Politics	Dara Cohen	Fall
IGA 236	Cybersecurity: Technology, Policy, and Law	Simson Garfinkel	Spring
IGA 412	Energy, the Energy Transition, and Global Politics	Meghan O’Sullivan	Spring
IGA 513	Science, Power, and Politics	Sheila Jasanoff	Fall
IGA 538	Technology, Privacy, and the Trans-National Nature of the Internet	James Waldo	Fall
IGA 632	Africa in Global Politics	Zoe Marks	Spring
IGA 655	Middle Eastern Politics and Policy	Tarek Masoud	Spring
IGA 662	The Future of the EU: Migration, Policy, and Politics	James Dennison	Fall

HKS Courses Cross-Listed or Jointly Offered with the Government Department

The following HKS courses are cross-listed or jointly offered with the Government Department and will show up in my.harvard with separate HKS and Government course numbers. College students should sign up for these courses under their Government course numbers, not the HKS ones. When taken under the Government course numbers, these courses are treated the same as any other Government Department courses for the purpose of concentration policies:

DPI 115 / Gov 1540	The American Presidency	Roger Porter	Fall
DPI 348 / Gov 1092	Progressive Alternatives: Institutional Reconstruction Today	Roberto Unger	Spring
DPI 505 / Gov 1535	The Supreme Court, Law, and Public Policy	Maya Sen	Fall
DPI 608 / Gov 1719	Political Communication Breakdown: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions	Matthew Baum	Spring
DPI 610 / Gov 1003	Data Science for Politics	Benjamin Schneer	Spring
IGA 211 / Gov 1796	Central Challenges of American National Security, Strategy, and the Press	Graham Allison, David Sanger, & Derek Reveron	Fall

(Last updated 8/26/2025)