Political Science

The seminar enquires the question of how affluence translates into influence, both on the domestic and international level via the engagement with three recently published books. With Guido Alfani’s “As Gods Among Men. A History of the Rich in the West”, the course asks what makes a person rich, what the richs’ role is in society and how either changed across history. With Katharina Pistor’s “The Code of Capital. How the law creates wealth and inequality”, the course seeks to understand the law and its international application as a core mechanism that turns affluence into influence. And with Helen Thompson’s “Disorder. Hard Times in the 21st Century”, the course assesses the implications of “aristocratic excess” on contemporary democratic politics. The seminar is an introduction to the topic and does not require any previous knowledge. However, it does require a commitment to reading substantive parts of each book.

This course examines the actors, dynamics, strategies and rules of the changing international political system, and patterns of interaction among the powers.

This course introduces the current and past issues at stake in the political, legal, and cultural relations between religions and states. A subject of recurrent debate and controversy in France, laïcité (or rather, secularism) is rarely treated critically, dispassionately and from an international perspective. Such is the focus of this seminar. Depending on the areas covered, the course discusses more generally about “laïcité” (in the case of France) or “secularism” (in the case of Anglo-Saxon countries). The course is interdisciplinary, drawing on historical, political, legal, and sociological approaches. It also focuses on comparative approaches in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. 

This course covers the basic principles, legal structures, and processes of governance at the EU level. The course introduces the EU's history, its main institutions and legal frameworks, the policymaking process, and the political struggles that take place around a number of issues that are relevant to the life sciences domains. The first half of the course provides a general background to the EU, including its history, main institutions, decision-making procedures, and implementation pathways. The second half of the course discusses the development of a number of relevant policy domains, including the internal market, marine policy, environmental policy, agricultural policy, and food policy. At the end of the course, students are able to explain the functioning of the EU’s main institutions and policies, use and analyze official EU documents and legislation, and critically appraise an ongoing policy debate.

This introductory course explores the origins of universal civil rights in the USA with an emphasis on historical events, review of biography and legacy of significant activists and change makers from the USA and other countries. The course also presents cases to examine the relationship between the causes triggering civil rights development, and how these events can relate to impactful social events and movements in the last decade in different regions of the world. The course intends to provide a theoretical background, a historical review of events, and a social analysis of movements that students can study by using varied resources for data collection and examination of influential media resources or independent documentation of these processes.

The conflict in and about Northern Ireland and the long peace process present a range of ongoing challenges for politics and society. This course examines a range of thematic challenges with respect to conflict, peacemaking, and peacebuilding and democratic governance in Northern Ireland. It looks as the roots of "The Troubles," the nature of the violence, the emergence of a peace process, and how this process has developed over the last thirty years. It speaks to questions such as What caused the conflict in Northern Ireland?, Why did the peace process happen?, Does power sharing work?, and How can we address the legacy of the conflict?

This course approaches the Korean Constitution from normative and contextual perspectives and examines the framework of the Korean Constitution and political structure. Topics include the origin and historical development of the Korean Constitution, preamble and legitimacy issues of the Korean Constitution, the political structure and the mechanisms of a democratic constitutional order, the guarantees of fundamental right, and the specific features of Korean constitutionalism. The latter half of the course is dedicated to group presentations and discussions in the format of an academic conference. 

This course examines the primary responsibilities of Congress and its relationships with other political actors. Topics include the theoretical underpinnings of Congress, the rules and procedures that make Congress a unique form of national legislature, the behavior of members in Congress, and the course focuses both on academic study as well as practical applications to the real political world (for example, students will draft, submit, and present a bill proposal.) While this course centers upon Korean and American systems, conclusions drawn from discussion may apply to other systems and countries as well.

This course provides students with insight and tools to analyze migration in 20th and 21st centuries, focusing on the major migration waves that have involved the USA and how it is also perceived as a transfer of knowledge, goods, capital and networks across borders. Demographic, economic, social, political and religious causes of migration are addressed through the analysis of specific case studies, which provide the students with a map of the most significant movements of people and their aftermaths in the decades to follow. The  instructor and different guest speakers pose a variety of questions such as, what are the definitions of migration? What is the role of states in defining and managing migration? Does it complement, compete with, subvert and/or foreshadow ethnic, national, religious, class and gender identities? What are the most vulnerable migrant groups? How do practices of migration cohabit with the state? What are the references in migration studies to concepts such as multiculturalism, toleration, diversity, collective rights, alienation and difference?

This course focuses on the The European Union (EU) and how the EU is often accused of suffering from a ‘democratic deficit’.  Students examine how part of this argument is rooted in a notion that the EU is not visible enough in media, and that because of this, European citizens do not have enough information about what the EU does and how it functions to form informed opinions about EU policies and the EU as a system. The course also examines the problematic way in which the EU is presented, with a tendency towards a national and negative focus on European issues. Such arguments about the EU’s presence in the public sphere have become all the more important as the EU has experienced increased contestation over the last decades. How is the EU portrayed and debated in traditional and social media, and how does it matter for the EU’s democratic legitimacy? Students explore these topics and questions through recent literature and analyze empirical examples from different types of media.