Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

This course investigates the ties between resorting to criminal justice and the making of postwar international and domestic orders. The story of post-World War Two war crime trials was long told from a Western standpoint in a context where justice was (also) a way of waging the Cold War by proxy. Moreover, until recent years scholarly attention has predominantly focused on a few highly publicized international trials, especially the Nuremberg and the Jerusalem trials, leaving in the shadows the diversity of legal proceedings that took place before national courts of law and failing to account for what was "a continent-spanning, decades-long, ever-evolving project" (Devin O. Pindas). This course departs from these perspectives in at least two ways: First, the course argues that trials for war crimes offer a fascinating window into several geopolitical, political and social processes. As arenas where a diversity of historical and social battles are being waged, they tell us about the crafting of regime changes, evolving power hierarchies, social norms, as well as the dominant social representations of gender at a given point in time. Second, national and international trials are shown to have been transnational in terms of the circulation of legal qualifications, material evidence, defendants, witnesses, and lawyers, as well as the entanglement between multiple legal proceedings. Three questions lie at the center of our investigations: Firstly, how can one account for the evolving conceptions of the role of justice in the management of postwar settlements and regime changes? Secondly, how can one shed light on the ways in which justice has been served – and has been seen to be served – since the end of World War Two? Thirdly, how have international and domestic trials of war criminals impacted the ways in which large scale violence is told by historians and remembered by victims and outsiders? In order to address these issues, this course provides a vision of justice attentive to the plurality of protagonists – legal as well as non legal professionals – that have contributed to its shaping, both within the judicial arena (prosecutors, judges, defense counsels, witnesses, translators, stenographers, etc.) and beyond it (Holocaust survivors, historians and archivists, journalists, political decision-makers, etc.). The assumption here is that a trial takes shape from the moment when the pretrial investigations are started and ends at the moment when the legal narratives are incorporated into ways of retelling and remembering war crimes. The course builds upon a diversity of oral, print and visual sources, including filmed trials and archival documents. Several scholars who have studied and/or taken part in legal proceedings for war crimes are also invited to share their insights with the students.

This course provides a first introduction to the field of political economy and the geopolitics of natural resources. It is based on rich literature from political philosophy, economics, comparative politics, and international relations. The period of analysis focuses on the post-war era and does not concentrate on any particular region. However, the specific characteristics of different regions or countries are discussed, including Latin America, Russia, Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa region.

This intermediate A2 level Russian language course focuses on the four skills of listening comprehension, spoken expression, reading comprehension, and written expression to enable students to use documentation in Russian and to practice the language in a non-specialized context. The listening comprehension section focuses on understanding sentences in simple, everyday situations and following short conversations on familiar topics. The spoken expression section allows for conversation in practical, simple, and predictable situations; holding a simple conversation; and summarizing a text. The reading comprehension section practices reading texts fluently and understanding the familiar elements. Finally, the written expression section provides an opportunity to compose a story. Some sessions may be devoted to Russian culture and civilization. In addition to the textbook, the course utilizes extracts from newspapers and other news media. The grammar and vocabulary learned enable students to form a descriptive and explanatory level of speech.

The course is about the scientific study of elections and voting behavior in modern democracies. The organization of elections is a key defining feature of democracy. It is thus crucial for political analysts to be able to apprehend them scientifically. The course examines in detail the act of voting in contemporary democracies (mostly, Western democracies mostly, but also non-Western democracies). The topics covered include how voters form preferences for parties/candidates, how they translate these preferences into a vote (or an abstention), and how they react to electoral campaigns and the state of the economy. It also covers how parties decide upon their electoral program, and how this affects their electoral performance. By the end of the module students are able to: actively read, fully understand, and critically appraise the scientific literature on elections; mobilize and articulate this scientific literature on elections to form an informed judgement about the state of elections in contemporary democracies and analyze new elections; and independently catch up with the latest developments of the scientific literature about elections.

While questioning the relevance of the concept of the "Iranian world," this course provides fundamental knowledge in the political sociology of contemporary Iran and Afghanistan, from a comparative perspective. The course considers together the political, economic, and cultural developments of these two states over a long period, from the fall of Isfahan in 1722, under the blows of an Afghan invasion, to the fall of Kabul in 2021, via the Anglo-Persian war of Herat in 1856-1857 and the concomitant upheavals of 1978 and 1979. Methods of comparative politics are combined with those of connected history to better understand the "Iranian world" as a whole, as well as each of its two major components, highlighting their differences as much as their similarities. The comparative study of Islamic currents of thought in the two countries forms an important part of this course. This includes a focus on the Arab world, as well as the Indian subcontinent. Finally, while the course focuses on Iran and Afghanistan, it also includes Tajikistan, the only other state where Persian is the official language. The course includes a visit to the Guimet Museum.

This course covers the development of public administrations during the 18th and 19th centuries. It addresses the ways in which government impresses political will onto the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, and how, inversely, society shapes government. It is both a course in history and public law. The course draws attention to the centuries of social evolution and legal tinkering behind many habitual features of our contemporary “bureaucratic” administrations. It explores several administrative systems across the Atlantic and Europe, namely that of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. Each session begins with the commentary of a visual document relating to aspects of a period's daily life containing cues to the legal and institutional context. The rest of the session consists of a brief lecture and a primary sources discussion. Sources are provided in a reader and mostly consist of historical legal documents.

This course examines the dynamics of contemporary racism in France through a knowledge of long history. It traces the genealogy of racism as it is expressed, both in the processes at work and in the debates that run through our society. To achieve this, the seminar focuses in particular, but not exclusively, on the legacy of our colonial past in terms of the expression of racism. This focus is directly linked to the lively debates that have arisen since the late 1990s as French society questions its colonial past. The seminar also develops the ability to reflect on the issues raised in a complex and problematized way.

This course focuses on European and Transatlantic security in the context of the Ukraine war and renewed international competition. It discusses how transatlantic security works from both the institutional framework (NATO, EU) and the national policies from the main actors, and investigates the recent evolution of the relationship between the two sides of the Atlantic. The course focuses primarily on security issues but also includes economic aspects (defense industry production capacities, the European Defense Fund). It also considers China in the Transatlantic context. The course utilizes a methodology learning style to develop executive-style presentation skills and media-style debate skills through the weekly exercises.

This course provides an introduction to the major economic issues of our time in order to master conceptual and empirical tools. The teaching style reverses the way economics is traditionally taught; instead of starting with the derivation of models, this course starts with a historical or current question or issue and sheds light on it through the use of economic models and concepts. It covers both the benefits of modeling and the inevitable shortcomings of the models used. The course provides a better understanding of major contemporary debates and issues with a strong political and social dimension, such as inequality, climate change, the sources of prosperity and innovation, economic instability and crises, and economic and public policy. It offers a rigorous theoretical introduction informed by recent empirical research and incorporates recent advances in economics, including strategic interactions, contract and information theory, behavioral economics, and new experimental methods. Microeconomics and macroeconomics are treated jointly.

This course approaches the economics of refugees as a theme in its own right within the economics of migration. It provides a comprehensive overview of the contemporary issues involved in receiving people who are forced to move to developed countries. It considers subjects that the tools of economics can decipher and interconnect to inform public decision-making, such as international law, public policy, the behavior of populations in host countries, the impact on the labor market, and climate change, as well as NGOs, international institutions, and companies in the social economy.