Political Science

This course examines French society through the lens of social justice in three main areas: economic, social, and political. Through various authentic materials and linguistic activities, it introduces the main French historical, administrative, social, and political foundations to facilitate the understanding of the themes presented in this course and better decipher the national and local reality. Guest speakers include experts and actors in these areas.

The course discusses the role of cultural policy in the age of platform giants and how the digital media ecology of major platforms creates inter-dependencies with other platforms, established cultural institutions, legacy media, public service institutions, digital creators, and users. The course begins with a discussion on the platform society and how the notion of digital cultural politics relates to cultural, media, and communication policy, as well as the internet and cultural industries. It lays the foundations from the perspective of dominant platforms and platform providers, with a specific focus on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, and YouTube. The second part of the course looks at the inter-dependencies that these platforms generate between themselves and cultural institutions, analyzing cultural institution’s use of platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The third part of the course focuses on data politics, user rights ethics, and discrimination. The final part of the course is composed of a day-long workshop where students work on themes and topics of their own choice as part of their final project. This course is taken in conjunction with the course Cultural Policy – Theory, Method & Analysis (HMKK03611U), a compulsory but non-credit-bearing course that provides students with adequate tools to conduct research within the field of cultural policy, with an emphasis on the relationship between theoretical framework, methodological design, and analysis. 

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.

This course introduces students to the structure of the British political system and the functioning of British politics in practice. Students start by exploring the social foundations of politics in the UK, looking at the roles of various national identities and of class, gender, and ethnicity. They also explore the main institutions and players in the UK system, setting these within a comparative context. Students seek to understand how the various parts of the system interact with each other in determining the character of the democratic process and the nature of policy outcomes.

This course explores what is arguably the paradigmatic exercise of state power: the decision to criminalize some conduct, and accordingly to punish those who engage in it. It gives students an opportunity to think about these and other issues in an intellectual search for the moral principles that ought to govern how crime and punishment are approached. Students read and argue with each other about important work in contemporary political, moral, and legal philosophy, applying what they learn to pressing political controversies.