Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

This course provides an overview of the origins and the evolution of the European Union’s legal system, as well as the main features of its governance framework. It also provides an opportunity to debate relevant questions and news items as they unfold during the course. Considering the strong influence European norms have on national legal systems today, the knowledge acquired in this course is useful both to more advanced study in European Union law and to better understand how national and European norms are defined and how they should be applied. The course provides the key to understanding current debates related to democracy, economic integration, and the respect of the rule of law within the European Union.

This course belongs to the field of intelligence studies. It introduces the main actors of American intelligence (agencies, National Interest Exception, National Safety Council, etc.) from their origins (most notably the birth of the CIA in 1947) until today. This is done through a historical analysis of the period, the actors, and the international context. Special attention is devoted to the impact of intelligence agencies in the conduct of United States foreign policy. Finally, the course introduces the main concepts of the intelligence world, such as clandestine actions, counterespionage, technological innovation, relationship between the decision maker and the intelligence agency, and inter-service cooperation. In so doing, it highlights the challenges that American, and more broadly Western, agencies continue to face today.

This course offers a blended approach to contemporary diplomacy focused on theory and practice. It is built around a series of lectures that discuss the logic of modern diplomacy, intertwined with workshop sessions which provide an opportunity to engage in role-plays, dispute resolution exercises, and simulations. The lectures review the key challenges that globalization has imposed on the traditional diplomatic practices as well as the art of negotiation as a function of diplomacy. It also reviews iconic case studies; discusses the relevance of traditional and modern diplomatic practices; assesses the triangle between media, politics, and society; and distinguishes the strategies to succeed. Finally, the course offers an emphasis on intercultural diplomatic skills to broaden the perspectives of the course.

Contemporary Middle Eastern cinema reflects the social, political and cultural challenges in the region, while revealing the revolutionary spirit of its filmmakers and their filmic language. This course defines dominant themes such as: territory, cultural identity, memory, modernism, religion, feminism, internal conflict and socio-political violence, within both historical and present political contexts. Filmmakers include: Chahine, Saab, Kiarostami, Farhadi, Gitai, Maoz, Folman, Doueiri, Khleifi, Assad, Güney, and Ceylan, dealing with the challenges of Egypt, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and Turkey. Basic film analysis terms and cultural theories are covered in order to study and articulate the form as well as content of these films. While addressing the larger question of the relationship between aesthetics and politics, this course encourages students to consider the analysis of film as a participant in social and political change.

This course addresses how history has been punctuated by civil resistance and disobedience movements whose characteristics, combats, tools, and arms get more sophisticated, shared, and reinvented as time moves forward. It identifies the news as a marker of movements of citizen protest, social opposition, demonstrations (such as Climate), and other acts of disobedience. From Thoreau to Gandhi, from Martin Luther King to the Extinction Rebellion movement, from Radio London (1940-1944) to the fight for the Larzac or the ZAD of Notre-Dames-des-Landes, this course explores how specific movements are born and fed and how media plays a role in the development or the resonance of these actions, from yesterday's press to modern platforms. The course includes analysis, readings, and deconstruction of what is called “civil disobedience and resistance,” in both democracies and authoritarian countries, from yesterday to today.

This course provides students with a clear idea of the diversity of European social policies, their political background, and allows for the assessment of their performance. The course also provides an in-depth account of current welfare reforms, in the perspective of their historical development. The social science analysis concepts (de-/re-commodification, path dependency, Varieties of Capitalisms) are used in order to understand the issues at stake in recent debates concerning the welfare state and the trajectories of their reforms.

This course examines how international law was an instrument used by the European colonial enterprise under the name "International Law of Civilized Nations." It then considers how it can be used today to repair the crimes linked to past colonizations.