Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po)

This course introduces the current state of political economy. It discusses the theoretical models of voting, electoral competition, interest group politics, non-democratic politics, and political transition. The course provides an understanding of the main theoretical models and the recent empirical research testing these models.

In an era of technology, health crisis, and transnational thinking, this course covers cutting edge issues such as gender discrimination through algorithms, sexual harassment after #metoo, reproductive rights and strategic litigation, and how feminist legal theory questions the way the law is constructed and applied according to stereotypical views of identity and systemic discrimination. The course investigates how queer theory influences the legal field by rejecting a binary view of identity and encompassing issues challenging LGBTQI groups. It explores what is learned from these various legal standpoints while encountering changes in family, criminal, and employment law; whether queer theory influences gender law; and whether there are new ways to consider legal concepts such as consent, personal autonomy, and intersectionality.

Game theory is a formal language to describe situations in which each agent's decision affects other agents' well-being. Games can be used to analyze a very broad range of economic, social, and political interactions. The main objective of the class is to present all key concepts of game theory (players, strategies, solution concepts etc.), and apply them. The course is self-contained and does not require any previous knowledge in game theory. The class also incorporates behavioral considerations that help better understand what agents actually do or should do. The methodology of controlled experiments in economics is presented, and recent experiments discussed.