Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

The course provides the latest methodological and theoretical tools for understanding the politics of urbanization and urbanism. The course takes the politics of urbanism as a transdisciplinary arena. It encourages thinking across disciplinary boundaries to address the environmental and social challenges of the present. The question of how cities act politically on the global scale is widely discussed and receives diverse answers from researchers. The course suggests that the study of the political agency shall be grounded in urban studies and empirically tested on different layers of policymaking, allowing for hybrid combinations. An urban studies approach addresses the spatial and temporal specificity of urban processes, in contrast with the "methodological nationalism" of large parts of the social sciences. It focuses critically on spatialized social processes and socio-material assemblages, combinations of objects and agencies that affect how cities are organized and, to some extent, governed.

This seminar explores American foreign policy from within. It studies the actors making it, their purpose, and the constraints they face. US foreign policy making is shaped by both American culture and the peculiarities of American democracy. Conversely, the constraints and the imperatives inherent to the conduct of foreign policy can sometimes endanger democratic principles. The course analyzes the fundamental debates over these issues and considers their evolution over time through in-depth case studies.

This course provides an introductory primer to the field of international law. It then navigates through a series of case studies exemplifying the subversion of legal conflicts by mass media, including Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even climate change. Finally, it tests the limits of this approach by considering the involvement of social media as an emerging Fifth Estate.

This course provides an introduction to memory studies, an interdisciplinary field encompassing sociology, political science, anthropology, and history, among other disciplines. The course introduces the main theoretical concepts in memory studies and the historical development of different approaches while focusing on recent debates on the relationship between memory politics and contemporary political developments (the rise of populism; nostalgia in the post-socialist world; Brexit; tearing down of colonial statues; return of looted artifacts from the Global North). The course provides an understanding of the basic notions of memory and its relation to identity formation, both individual and collective; the role of memory in institutional politics through memorialization rituals; the importance of monuments; and the role of memory and nostalgia as sites of resistance in everyday politics of contemporary world. Through lectures, selected readings, media screenings, group discussions, and student presentations, the course provides insight into the importance of power interplays of different memory and history narratives and critically engages in understanding contemporary memory discourses.

This course investigates the evolution of relations between the United States and European states with a focus on the strategic and security-related dimensions of this relationship. It seeks to analyze the driving factors behind recent transatlantic crises and divergences and the implications for the future of international security. The first part of the course introduces several theoretical approaches to transatlantic relations based on the main International Relations schools of thought. The second part of the course applies these approaches to current challenges facing the transatlantic partnership, ranging from defense burden sharing to responding to Russia's assertiveness, from China's rise to crises in the Middle East and Africa.

This course teaches a technical mastery of photography, the journalistic narrative through images, and the critical reading of photojournalism published in the press. It studies fundamental technical concepts (focal lengths, diaphragm, speed, sensitivity), the narrative structure of a photojournalistic story, the deontological discussion of the photo taking, the critical reading of image making, and the basics of digital image processing. The course provides the skills to create, develop, and tell critical journalistic stories using photography as a means of expression.