Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

This course introduces the spatial effects the law has in everyday life's urban spaces, problems related to geography in general, and cities in specific. It examines the relationship between space and law, and how law and legal theory are essential starting points in understanding cities and vice versa. The course also confronts legal and social theories using architecture, literature, film, art, and legal ethnographic approaches. It addresses inquiries such as how law creates space; how national and international laws construct cities; how law, literature, and film represent cities; and how it is possible to do legal research in this field.

Through a series of concept-letters, this course uncovers various approaches to politics. It covers a selection of classical and contemporary notions, doctrines, and various styles of reasoning, and presents their usefulness for the city. It considers what these doctrines and reasonings mean for today's citizens, and how they can be mobilized to understand political issues and act in a just, democratic, and responsible way. Beyond abstract reasoning, the course reflects on the articulation between theory and practice; deliberates contemporary social and moral problems; discusses the formal understanding of political phenomena and the way they are understood, implemented, or contested by individuals and groups; and finally, demonstrates that philosophical concepts are not only elaborated in the realm of ideas, but are inspired by and act upon in the political and social world.

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.