Political Science

This course examines the political evolution of human politics from ancient times to the present; basic concepts, theories and methods for analyzing the relationship between politics and society; the reality of Chinese society.

This course covers the history of international environmental politics and examines various approaches, actors, and aspects of environmental politics. While in-class discussions focus on climate change, students work in groups to apply the concepts and approaches discussed in class to specific environmental problems, such as biodiversity loss, marine plastic pollution, or deforestation and desertification. This course is a partnership with the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus. All students have access to material from Sciences Po and UWI. Additionally, some students complete their coursework with peers from UWI.

This course offers an in-depth study of the international politics of East Asia. Topics include: the role of China, Japan, and the US in shaping the East Asian region we know today; the impact of China's rise on the region; regionalism; intra-regional security-- North Korea's nuclear diplomacy and the South China Sea.

This course provides an overview of the decision-making process under the Fifth Republic and introduces the various components of the French Army and the strategic environment within which France's action takes place (European Union, NATO, UN).  It then examines security evolutions and considers the place of nuclear dissuasion and the technological revolution on the battlefield. The second part of the course is dedicated to the analysis of the French military interventions since 2001: from Afghanistan to Iraq, to the Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic, Libya, Syria, and Sahel; the diversity of the French Army's theaters of operation showcases various key concepts: power, strategy, French Africa, common spaces, the responsibility to protect (R2P), et cetera.

This course begins by covering the classical concept of the totalitarian state, as developed by Hannah Arendt and others, taking Hitler and Stalin as their models. Subsequent modifications and debates regarding the theory of totalitarianism, especially in the Soviet Empire, are discussed. The course questions what popular attitudes and psychological reactions exist towards totalitarian atrocities, such as the Holocaust, and under what psychological conditions are individuals capable of offering resistance. While these phenomena may now appear to be bygones of merely historical interest, the psychological aspects of “totalitarian situations” remain acutely important, even in present-day democratic societies. The massacre in My Lai, the obedience experiments carried out by Stanley Milgram, and other psychological studies provide shocking evidence of how easily average citizens are in danger of behaving inhumanely in social situations.

This course reconsiders the relationship between industrial society and war. Away from the capitalist peace theory, the course reconsiders industrial revolutions and economic reforms through the lens of security. It raises the question of the variety of capitalist models. In a very pragmatic way, it studies the correlation between conflict and the rise of a new economic power. Topics include theories of hegemonic transition, the rise of China and United States trade wars, understanding trade wars in the 21st century and the modern economy, and economic interdependence when security is at stake. At the crossroads of economics, history, and political science, the course adopts a comparative approach with cases taken from the United States, China, Russia, the European Union, and Japan.