Political Science

This course provides an overview of the study of international relations (IR). The first part of the course examines the main theoretical approaches that aim to explain the behavior of state and non-state actors in the international system such as realism, liberalism, Marxism and the "English School," including modern approaches such as feminism, and neo-colonialism incorporating religion-based perspectives. The second part of the course builds on the main IR theories to explore the determinants and dynamics of civil wars, insurgencies, terrorist tactics civil resistance campaigns allied to populism and nationalism. Students focus on the role non-state actors play in shaping these phenomena.

The course is to understand and appreciate the various political and economic reforms that have characterized politics and public management in Africa south of the Sahara (sub-Saharan Africa). It also explores and examines democratization against the backdrop of the differences in the democratization experiences of the various countries across time and space. This course requires quality participation by all registered students since most class discussions will expect students to give examples of some of the reforms they have heard, read about or seen in sub-Saharan Africa. In essence, students are required to be widely read in order to make meaningful contributions in class.

This course explores the question of whether states have the right to demand obedience of their citizens, and do citizens have a duty to obey the law? It considers what the best answer to the "anarchist challenge" might be, alongside the relative merits and weaknesses of various accounts of political obligations. The course also examines democracy and if democracy is the only legitimate form of political authority, and what the intrinsic and instrumental values of democratic rule are. It considers if there should be limits to the will of the majority in democracies, as well as if democratic citizens have special duties, such as the duty to vote? Lastly, the course explores resistance: what are the limits of obedience in just and unjust societies? It examines if citizens have a right to civil disobedience, and what is the proper legal response to this form of protest. The course enquires as to whether citizens have the duty to engage in resistance to injustice, and under what circumstances might they resort to violent protest?

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in promoting ideas of multiculturalism and in codifying minority rights, both at the global level, and within regional bodies. This course considers important issues relating to this development, paying attention to the European context. The course addresses three questions: (a) why minority rights have emerged as a priority issue, and how this relates to broader changes to the functions of the international community in the post-Cold War era; (b) the categories that are being used to identify different types of minorities, such as “indigenous peoples”, “national minorities”, and “migrant workers”, and how these are viewed as raising different types of challenges; and (c) the complex consequences of this process. This course provides students with an overview of the legal and political issues pertaining to minority rights at the European scale. The concepts of minority and of discrimination are scrutinized and consideration is given as to which groups constitute a minority in legal terms and how political claims are made to counter discrimination in different political regimes.

This course provides an analysis of the politics of contemporary development processes in the South and the global interests that influence them. The course considers development as both practical pursuit and as a series of discourses and representations. Three key themes are covered: key concepts and historical overview (introducing critical approaches to development, and providing an overview of development during the Cold War); securing development in the 21st century (addressing discourses and representations in relation to the security-development nexus, focusing on immigration, disease, drugs, and violence); and doing development in the 21st century (examining development in practice, looking especially at approaches to tackling informality and chronic unemployment, such as microfinance, and universal basic income).

In this course students become familiar with the literature and theoretical concepts dominating the academic debate about green growth, low-carbon development, and social inclusiveness. The course studies examples from China and India, looking at the factors that shape processes of social inclusiveness and of the greening of the economy. Both China and India offer interesting perspectives on how rapidly developing countries, which have displayed high economic growth rates over the last decade, deal with environmental pollution and climate change on the one hand and with social inequality on the other. The seminar imparts the analytical skills needed to effectively research policies and politics related to inclusive low-carbon development. It reflects upon scientific literature on these issues and discusses adequate theoretical starting points for empirical research. Furthermore, students research the key facts and figures and conduct small illustrative case studies in order to identify influential factors in this field.

The course has three themes: introduction to the development discourse; aid and conditionality; and development in practice. In the first theme the book DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM by Amartya Sen and several articles introduce students to some of the most important problems and discussions about development. The relationship between development and democracy is studied. In theme two, development and democracy are analyzed in connection with aid based on William Easterly's book THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN and a number of articles. Within this theme there is a focus on aid policies, and the creation of democracy in development states and specifically on democracy in Africa. The last theme is development in practice; a section planned to study development through specific regional cases that allow us to understand some of the problems and possibilities it faces. It includes specific initiatives aimed to deal with the most pressing problems in the field while discussing the ways in which such challenges and programs can be further analyzed and theorized. The course consists of three themes that are derived from three connected dimensions of the relations between the exercise of state power and various identities and forms of organization in society in different regions in the global south: i) development, ii) democracy, iii) political identities. The first course theme addresses different perspectives on economic and social development and underdevelopment, with special attention paid to the role of the state in shaping these processes. The second theme discusses forms of political rule and introduces different explanations of democracy and authoritarian rule. The theme also discusses theories of how these forms of political rule are related to levels of development. The third theme discusses how different political identities are connected to the organization of political institutions. This theme pays special attention to the question of how national identities are linked to other political identities based on gender, class, ethnicity and religion, how identities affect and are affected by the organization of state institutions, and how this in turn is linked to issues of conflict and stability.