Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

This course examines the evolution of the historiography of the Cold War, with its recent transformations, to then analyze the nature of today's international relations marked by the “return of competition between the super powers,” an expression created by the Pentagon in 2016. The Chinese and Russian analyses of the evolution of the world that we have long called "Post-Cold War" is also studied.

This multidisciplinary course considers equality, discrimination, affirmative action, and multiculturalism within the specific context of the U.S. experience. This experience is characterized by three structural features that Alexis de Tocqueville famously identified: the passion for equality, the salience of racial divisions, and the judicialization of politics. Elaborating upon those intuitions, the course relies extensively on history (that of ethno-racial and religious minorities since the early nineteenth century), law (through a thorough analysis of some of the key Supreme Court decisions in this area), political science (through the study of the emergence, development, and partial decline of race-conscious policies such as affirmative action and the redistricting designed to increase the number of Black and Hispanic elected representatives), and political philosophy (by discussing theories of social justice and equality, notably those of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Michael Walzer).

This course presents an overview of the major Sunni and Shiite Islamist organizations that have developed and spread throughout the twentieth century. Through the cases of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Jama‘at ul-Tabligh in India, the Hizb al-Tahrir in Palestine, the Islamic Da‘wa Party in Iraq, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and even the afghan origins of al-Qaeda, the course explores the origins, ideology, social bases, and actions of these organizations, as well as their various forms of transnationalization in the Muslim world. The circulation of actors and ideas are particularly developed in order to highlight the anchoring of Islamism in an increasingly globalized space.

This course offers students an introduction to two key dimensions of globalization: international trade and international finance. The course covers both theoretical and empirical contributions and often refers to current policy issues in both international trade and macroeconomics. Using theoretical and empirical tools, students consider a wide range of topics such as: gains of specialization; effect of trade on inequality; market power effects on international trade; consequences of trade policy; international financial flows; relation between exchange rates and monetary policy; globalization impacts on macroeconomics policies; euro currency area; and international financial crises. Prerequisite for this course is a first year economics course. The course uses basic mathematical tools that are common in any economics course.

This course establishes fundamental knowledge needed to understand contemporary Iran. It analyzes political, economic, and cultural transformations which have guided imperial Persia from the beginning of the 19th century to become the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. The course systematically compares Iran and its regional environment with an emphasis on the Arab world and Turkey. It utilizes diverse disciplinary approaches, from social history to political economics, with a focus on political sociology.