Political Science

This course introduces the analysis of public policy. The course starts by exploring public institutions in which policy is analyzed, developed and implemented, including the cabinet system, treasury, and the presidency. Then some models that scholars have used to make sense of complex policy processes are considered. The course then explores specific public policy challenges in areas such as energy security, school system reform, and HIV/AIDS policy. This course is especially useful for students wanting to understand contemporary government in SA, and the relationships between public policy and politics. DP requirements: Tutorial attendance is compulsory and students who attend fewer than 85% of the tutorials will not be allowed to write the final examination. In addition, completion of all written assignments, essays and tests are a requirement for a DP. Should students fail to hand in written assignments by due date, they will be penalized according to the grading formula of the Department. All required work for DP purposes MUST be submitted by the last day of the course. Assessment: Coursework counts 50%; final two-hour examination counts 50%. Course entry requirements: Any 2000-level POL course or with special permission from the Head of Department.

This course examines concepts of justice and injustice as they apply to the social, spatial, and environmental realms—and to the intersections between them. It offers a critical exploration of the origins of these notions, the contributions of key thinkers, and the ways in which ideas of justice have circulated, been debated, and been mobilized across academic, social, and political spheres. The course focuses on applying these analytical frameworks to a range of spaces, including metropolitan areas, peripheral territories, and natural (protected) environments, in both the Global North and the Global South. From a methodological perspective, the course introduces students to actor-based analysis, critical source evaluation, and the processes of translating concepts and debates between Anglophone and Francophone academic and activist contexts.

This course offers a historical perspective on the development of the European Union and its close associates yet not formally members of the Union. The EU is usually approached and studied as an administrative and legal construct. In this lecture series by contrast, the emergence and
development of this singular polity is examined in the variety of its manifestations: economic as well as political and cultural.

This course covers the different periods of collaboration between the United States and the United Kingdom in various domains (such as politics, economics, diplomacy, defense, culture) from the origins until now, with a sharp focus on the 1945-2025 period. It discusses foreign policy-making and provides an overview of the current state of the relationship. The course analyzes foreign policies with the recurring strategic features for each country concerned, and assesses crisis management and resolution options as regards complex defense and security issues.

This course provides both a base of knowledge on the foreign policy of the United States and an in-depth study on specific themes. It examines the pillars of U.S. foreign policy through the lens of current events (counterterrorism operations in 2021 and the war in Ukraine since February 2022). It covers elements concerning American foreign policy, its issues, its institutions, its legal framework, the governance of the main presidents, the major schools of thought participating in strategic decision-making, the concrete use of the defense and security tool since 1945 and the dilemmas posed to American power by the evolution of the contemporary world. It also discusses the national security enterprise, the major intellectual currents in American foreign policy, the main American commitments, and the future of American leadership. Thus armed with a more detailed knowledge of the terms of the debate, students better understand and analyze the workings of international news and have the necessary references to enter a professional environment concerned by the international policy of the United States. Other topics include containment; roll back; New Look Policy; peaceful coexistence; domino theory; graduated response; MAD; Star Wars; Bush-Rumsfeld Doctrine; Obama's New Beginning & Reset.

The course provides students with knowledge of the major theories and approaches to the analysis of international relations. In order to do so, it will focus on the structure of the international system, the dynamics of cooperation and conflict in the international arena, and the evolution of war in international politics. At the end of the course, students are able to distinguish the key factors underpinning cooperation and conflict in world politics and to use the major theories in international relations to understand contemporary international political phenomena. 

The course introduces students to the main theoretical traditions in international relations, including realism, liberalism, constructivism, the English School, and critical approaches to IR. It explores how these traditions conceptualize power, security, interests, institutions, and ideas, and how they contribute to our understanding of international politics. Students engage with the core theories of the discipline, such as balance of power, hegemonic stability, institutionalism, democratic peace, and capitalist peace. The course also examines the constructivist emphasis on norms and identity, the English School’s analyses of the evolution of the international order, as well as critical IR perspectives, which challenge mainstream theories by highlighting issues of inequality and colonialism.

This course asks whether the welfare state is justified, how extensive it should be, and what level of inequality and/or poverty is acceptable in a just society. Thus, the course examines the main theories of distributive or social justice in contemporary analytical political philosophy. Distributive justice is about the fair distribution of burdens and benefits in a society and some of the main approaches to this issue that we look at include liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism (left and right), luck egalitarianism, and relational egalitarianism and republicanism. The course also looks at some of the critiques, alternative approaches and applications of these theories, to areas like health and education.

At a time when liberal democracies are weakened by ideological polarization and the rise of populist movements challenging institutional checks and balances as well as the foundations of rational debate (Trumpism, the Bolsonaro episode, the AfD, etc.), it is becoming vital for future political, administrative, and academic leaders—who are often unfamiliar with scientific fundamentals, particularly in statistics—to acquire a basic grasp of such tools in order to define a framework for contributing to informed debate and evidence-based decision-making. This course provides them with that foundation through the lens of mathematical modeling. Concretely, it offers a rigorous methodology and a practical introduction to statistical modeling, taught through its logical application in structuring arguments and fostering debate. The objective is to equip students with practical tools that will allow them to analyze, interpret, and critically assess the use of data in their future professional environments, whether in strategy, economics, consulting, or public affairs management. With the help of AI-assisted applications, students learn to build, and interpret simple economic models, while developing a critical stance on the limitations and biases inherent in these models. The econometric article by Daron Acemoglu, recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize, serves as one of the course's central threads, alongside more operational examples drawn from the corporate world and public sector. Through these applications, the course also offers students keys to understanding the mathematical foundations behind how artificial intelligence operates. The overarching ambition of this course is to enable students to become autonomous, clear-sighted, and critical actors in the use of data—capable of shaping the framework of public debate and decision-making at a time when perceptions of reality are increasingly influenced and polarized by the subjective interpretations of both populist opinion leaders and the prophets of artificial intelligence and big data.

In this course, students critically explore the scientific base of the degrowth paradigm. Is “green” growth indeed impossible, and how would we know? How is growth tied to global production-consumption systems and their destructive impacts? How does the economic growth paradigm influence not only countries and organizations but also individuals who strive for performance maximization and more productive and marketable uses of their time? Through the lens of three different academic perspectives, students explore and discuss what “de-growing” economic systems, policies, and individual behaviors could look like.