London School of Economics

This course introduces students to the foundations of Behavioral Science: the science that explains and predicts how humans make decisions. Students are introduced to the way in which we make judgements and investigate strategies for decision making. Students study cognitive biases and aspects of context which influence how/what judgements and decisions we make. This course also delves into the dynamics of decision-making in groups, exploring topics such as how groups make decisions effectively and the common pitfalls that can impede their success. Additionally, students delve into the role of choice architecture in shaping group decision-making processes, and analyze various heuristics that individuals use, such as anchoring and receptiveness, which can impact group decision-making. Importantly, across both parts of the course, discussion of core concepts and examples are woven together with new advances and applications in the field. 

The course provides an introduction to theoretical, historical, and contemporary debates around race, racism, and empire. It covers the following thematic areas: history; theory; experience; futurism. Students begin by exploring the historical events and contemporary afterlives that have created a world structured by racism and colonialism. From the Enlightenment to nationalism; from science to secularism, students look at how this world came to be, and why these often-hidden histories matter. The course then looks at different ways people have tried to understand this world. Theoretical paradigms include anticolonial theory, the Black Radical Tradition, Queer theory, Trans* theory, and postcolonial theory, decoloniality and settler colonialism, among others. The third block looks at the everyday experiences of race and empire. The course looks at the politics around tourism, climate change, technology, intimacy, movement and food, and the course ends with a discussion about abolition as a means of imagining a future free of racism.

This course engages key sociological issues through the critical reading of theoretical and analytical texts. Students engages with advanced concepts in sociological thought, and explores the connections between theoretical arguments and the practice of social enquiry and analysis. Students read a combination of social theory texts in a range of traditions as well as contemporary research studies.

The course tackles philosophical questions about legal systems and criminal justice. The first half of the course typically discusses big picture questions about the purpose of law and what, if anything, the criminal justice system achieves. For example, students might consider the moral obligation to obey the law, the viability of political anarchism, the justification of punishment, dispute-resolution without the state, and the moral status of civil or violent disobedience. The second half of the course usually takes a closer, critical look at how criminal justice works in practice. For example, students might discuss questions like: What is the fairest way to evaluate allegations of sexual criminality? Should we use algorithms to make decisions about parole or punishment severity? Should we defer to juries or instead use professional judges? Does it make sense to treat a corporation as morally responsible? What alternatives are there to prisons?

The course provides students with an introduction to the history of Latin America from the late 19th century to the present day. Its focus is predominantly on Latin Americans and what happened within the region. However, the course also explores Latin Americans’ interaction with the wider world, including their pivotal and expanding relationship with the United States during the 20th century. Major themes covered on the course include identity, citizenship and nationalism; neo-colonialism and anti-imperialism; state-building and concepts of “development”; revolution and resistance; dictatorship and violence; democratization; and the struggle for social justice. In addressing these themes, students are paying particular attention to histories of race, class, and gender with students encouraged to consider how different Latin Americans experienced and influenced the course of history in the region.

The course explores economic policy in the global economy. Students study the causes and consequences of international economic integration, focusing on how globalization affects the trade-offs that shape policy. Both theoretical and empirical analyses are considered. Key topics include international trade, capital flows, migration, technology diffusion, taxation in the global economy, and the relationship between globalization and national sovereignty.

China’s rise has been one of the defining issues of contemporary world history. Examine this transformation in global affairs from both outside-in and inside-out perspectives. This course explores how China has shaped, and been shaped by, its encounters with the international order, from the Qing Empire to the present. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this course brings together research from history, international relations, and international political economy.  

The course gradually moves from the foundational principles of Behavioral Science, to the practical applications based on those principles through three interlinked blocks. Students are introduced to dual-processing models of human behavior to highlight the role of the environment in shaping decisions. They consider the Dual System approach, heuristics and biases, and the influence of time, risk, and social preferences. The course delves into the science of happiness by introducing the main accounts of subjective wellbeing, how it is conceptualized and measured and its implications for policy and other contexts. Finally, the course introduces the Mindspace framework by teaching how various techniques from Behavioral Economics (incentives, commitments, defaults), Social Psychology (ego, messenger and social norms), and Cognitive Psychology (priming, affect) can be used to shape behavior. 

This course provides an examination of the cultural frameworks and social aspects of kinship systems, gender roles, personhood and human sexuality, analyzed through ethnographic examples from a diverse range of settings. It aims to equip students with the analytical tools to engage in theoretical debates concerning core concepts such as kinship, marriage, gender, sex, the person, and the relationship between nature and culture, as well as exploring how the experiences of kinship, sex and gender vary according to the regimes of politics, law and materiality in which they are embedded. The course charts the history of anthropological debates on kinship, relatedness, sex and gender, and familiarizes students with a range of contemporary approaches to these themes, placing ethnographic materials into a critical dialogue with recent developments in feminist theory, queer theory, the anthropology of colonialism, cognitive science, and psychoanalysis.

We use language all the time to express our thoughts and understand others. But how does language work? Key questions covered in this course include: how do names refer to an object? Do words mean whatever we intend or use them to mean? What role does convention play in fixing meanings? Are our terms vague, or precise? Can a person have a private language? How do we communicate beyond the literal? What are speech acts and are they available to everyone in our society? All of these questions are of interest in their own right, and also have applications to further issues in philosophy and beyond.