Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

This course examines the definition of propaganda and the persuasion of the masses in the contemporary world. It relies on several disciplines (history, communication, sociology, political sciences, social psychology, art history, and neuroscience) and puts into perspective the evolution of propaganda and persuasion from the "age of paper" through the "digital age." Students analyze a multitude of platforms (text, fixed images, animated images, sound, objects, and monuments) by using both a theoretical and empirical approach. Along with a methodology of writing and presentation, this course explores critical analysis in a global perspective and techniques of forming public opinion.

Combining political history, political law, and political science, this course examines how political life is organized in France, how constitutional texts and institutional practices interact, and how the new and old political worlds relate to each other. Representative democracy is being questioned. Participatory democracy is regenerating it. Referendum-based or even “digital” democracy is being called for. Presidential dominance over the parliamentary majority remains subject to the agreement of both presidential and parliamentary majorities. Rationalized parliamentarianism is increasingly being questioned. In a context of political radicalization, the course considers how Parliament, the majority, and the opposition are organized; why revise the Constitution, why certain failures, why question our institutions again; how Parliament positions itself in relation to random selection, how it deals with climate transition, and what are its ethics. 

This course explores the governance initiatives that are emerging in response to the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change which, as a truly global problem, implicates and affects all parts of the world and makes these initiatives necessarily more speculative, less established, and more rapidly evolving than most other governance initiatives. The topics and readings for the course foreground the theme of governance and explore the various institutions and techniques that have evolved, or might evolve, to address the phenomenon of climate change.

This course introduces the main aspects of contemporary ethical philosophy. It offers, on the one hand, a systematic presentation of the major options and methods of contemporary ethics in the form of a series of short lectures, and, on the other hand, an interactive examination of a series of major questions in applied ethics, in fields as diverse as environmental and climate ethics, sexual ethics, the ethics of war, business ethics, bioethics, etc.

This course investigates how benevolent conduct is enacted in the world, despite the typical focus on power, war, economic domination, and indifference towards distant foreigners in the study of international relations. This concept is approached from political theory, international relations, as well as artistic endeavors, to explore the tension between interest and sympathy concerning both human nature and the foundations of politics, the traces of which can be found consistently in philosophical debates between the 17th century and today. This course provides a deeper understanding of international relations by exploring an underinvested historical, empirical, and philosophical dimension. It considers benevolence as sensitivity, conduct, and project in the global space to cultivate a clear and optimistic view of the scope of benevolence in the contemporary world.

This course provides an overview of the use of quantitative methods in sociology. It alternates between presentation and discussion of quantitative sociology methods and the techniques most used in this discipline (univariate and bivariate descriptive statistics, logistic regressions), and practical application using R software. Students conduct their own research project implementing these methods with research topics based on the 2018 European Values Survey highlighting the values, political opinions, and representations of the French.