Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

This course addresses a fundamental question of political science: political legitimacy. The seminar is divided into three main parts. The first part is more philosophical in nature and focuses on the source and limits of political power in different types of political regimes. The second part of the course deals with some of the key concepts of political theory, including questions about political power, domination, social justice, and exploitation. The third part is composed of four thematic sessions dedicated to Turkey. Examples covered include the Gezi Park protests of 2013, as well as other moments of popular uprisings and their political meanings for different regimes in the region and beyond. The course provides the theoretical and empirical resources needed to develop the skills to critically apprehend current political events.

This course studies the design of institutions that optimally cope with fundamental, longstanding economic questions (allocation of private goods, public good provision, externalities). It begins from a simple, institution-free description of each question to understand the basic tensions at work and derive institutions that optimally address these tensions. In the process, it introduces the important ideas of social choice, game theory, and market design and highlights the theoretical concepts using empirical applications and in-class games. Topics include social choice, efficiency, and welfare; game theory and incentives; institutions as mechanisms; and limits to efficiency.

This course examines both the evolution of United States foreign policy in the post-Trump era and the strategic challenges confronting the United States and its allies in a changing world environment. It does so through cross views from the transatlantic community of scholars combining academics, think tank fellows, former policy makers, and administration officials from both sides of the Atlantic. Given the evolutions in the strategic environment, the emphasis is on the future of transatlantic relations and United States relations with NATO in the context of power competition; the questioning of military cooperation and the American Way of War in the Middle East and Africa; the pursuit of the United States strategy in the Indo-Pacific region and the future of the United States-China rivalry and interdependency; the challenges of new forms of power competition with the two identified revisionist powers: China and Russia; the future of American power on new battlefields: in cyber and information warfare that are part of the game of power politics of today; and redefining American alliances.

This trans-disciplinary course provides details on past and current systems and cases of censorship to allow for in-depth study of certain landmark plays, novels, and film adaptations that have caused the greatest scandals and most intense censorship over the past century. It brings together notions of media studies, sociology, history, law and key legal battles, publication processes, as well as literary and film analysis. The course mainly focuses on banned and censored books and film adaptations in Great Britain and the United States, and students have the opportunity to bring in such cases in other countries during the weekly round table debates and in-class discussions.

This course addresses how institutions constrain and enable the potential for political cooperation and shape political decision making. In particular, through the readings, the course investigates key questions of political analysis including how institutions are designed, how they shape individual and collective behavior, how they vary over time, and how they are resisted.