The Department of Political Science and International Relations was founded in 2011 with just 3 faculty members growing to its current strength of 15 full-time faculty. The faculty serve 20 graduate students and about 300 undergraduate majors, while also teaching students from across the School of Sciences and Humanities and the University.

Our Department is committed to dynamic growth, which is evident in the highly productive faculty with diverse rich interests, world-class learning opportunities at both graduate and undergraduate levels, and highly active student life. Our Department has a working strategic partnership with the Political Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This partnership enhances research opportunities and assures the delivery of excellent political science education. Our first cohort of students graduated in June 2015 and our graduate majors have gone on to Ph.D. programs in the US, MA programs in the UK, the Czech Republic, Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, and the US, and employment in Kazakhstan and abroad. Our first cohort of graduate students graduated in 2016. Several of them have been admitted to the PhD programs in the Netherlands, the UK and the US.

Our faculty members are active researchers. We have a regularly held political science seminar (the PSIR Faculty Lecture Series) that provides opportunities for faculty, invited scholars and graduate students to present work in progress. The department works closely with the School of Sciences and Humanities to provide research opportunities for undergraduate students, including sponsoring undergraduate research presentations and helping to fund conference travel for undergraduate and graduate students.

PSIR undergraduate students are active across the University. Undergraduate political science students run a very active Association of Political Science Students that organizes seminars on research and current events on a regular basis throughout the school year.

We invite you to learn more about our Department by navigating this website. If you have questions about the Department or about Astana, please feel free to contact us.