Political Science

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 explores the theory and practice of international organizations and global governance. It examines the theory and operations of both established and emerging international organizations. This course also includes guest lectures from practitioners in relevant international organizations.

This advanced course introduces Japanese politics and demonstrates how the study of Japanese politics can contribute to an understanding of broader issues in comparative government and comparative politics. It examines how Japanese politics has developed and what has been key, referring to the relevant scholarly debates. It covers modern political history since 1945 and the structures and key actors of contemporary politics such as political parties, bureaucracies, and policy making. The course also studies a number of contemporary policy issues in depth, including industrial policy, regulatory policy, foreign and defense policy, and welfare policy. It looks at policy issues at a micro level and links them to broader political contexts of Japanese politics and beyond.