Political Science

This course accompanies the build up to the 2024 United States election, election night, and its aftermath by offering a lecture series with different speakers from the Department of Political Science, other departments at the University of Oslo, and from outside the university. Besides the question of who will most likely succeed in the presidential election, the course introduces the way in which presidential elections work, the role of other electoral races that take place in parallel (e.g. for members of Congress), how the election will shape U.S. politics, and what impact the election will have on different policy fields both in the United States and globally.

This course provides a detailed examination of the various conflicts that have beset Iraq since 1980, covering the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War; the 1990-91 Gulf War; the 2003 war; the post-2003 civil war, and the conflict with the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). The aim is to examine these conflicts holistically, considering not only their military and political dimensions – absolutely central as these are to an understanding of Iraq's modern history and politics – but also to look at the economic sources and impacts of the conflict, the social and religious dynamics, and the regional setting and implications of them. The course broadly follows a chronological line in looking at these conflicts, since to a large extent these conflicts stem from previous ones, but the discussion and analysis is also interspersed with theoretical discussions about conflict and with the examination of films, documentaries, and other audiovisual narratives about modern Iraq.

This is course provides a critical overview of over-arching themes and agendas in war, migration, and health. This includes building understanding of how war and migration affect population and critical assessment of how health systems in Europe respond to population movements. In doing so the course highlights issues of how health is conceptualized in theory and practice, the power relations and inequalities involved within and between key health populations, actors, and institutions, and the key health challenges before and after war. 

This course provides the basis for understanding the current trends in international trade, including the growth of unilateralism and protectionist pressures and the crisis of the world trading system. 

Students explore cutting-edge research on climate politics and critically analyze various theoretical concepts and models, assess the advantages and drawbacks of different empirical approaches, and draw connections to core debates in international political economy and political science. Students gain familiarity with the frontier of climate politics scholarship, learn how to constructively critique academic work, and develop skills in designing and executing rigorous political economy research.

The course explores the major theoretical models of Political Economy and the available empirical evidence. Sample topics include social choice theory and preference aggregation; comparative electoral systems; political economy of income redistribution; turnout in elections; strategic and sincere voting; political parties; debates and communication; political agency models; citizen-candidate models; and empirical studies of political selection, representation and policy outcomes, bureaucracy, gender and politics, and conflict. Empirical studies will be mostly focused on developing countries.

The topics for this course differ each term. In spring 2024, this course has a special focus on The Origin and Development of Political Psychology: From Plato to Martha Nussbaum. Political Philosophy is conceived as the application of philosophical investigation to politics and thus as a study of the contribution that philosophy may give to political practice. This implies both a clarification of the terms used in our everyday political vocabulary and an attempt at designing models of a just society. The course provides the following: a) notions on methodology in historical investigation; b) the ability to analytically read a text while at the same time situating it into the historical and linguistic context of the age; c) knowledge of the perennial tasks of political philosophy; d) an introduction to political realism. The course is devoted to the examination of the origin and development of political psychology. It starts with Plato's notion of the tripartite soul and arrives to the role of emotions in Martha Nussbaum's thought. The first part is devoted to a clarification of the notion of 'political philosophy' and to an account of the methodology in the history of political thought.

This course introduces the various theoretical traditions and research fields of feminist political science. First, the heterogeneous field of feminist theories is presented (liberal feminism, radical feminism, socialist feminism through to intersectional, queer feminist and postcolonial approaches). Selected concepts and subdisciplines of political science are then discussed from a feminist perspective. Using the example of selected research fields, the previously introduced theoretical perspectives are subjected to critical reflection.

This course examines moral arguments relating to the functioning of markets; considers the different ways in which the use of markets may, in general terms, be justified or criticized; introduces students to a range of normative perspectives on the operation and appropriate extent of markets, and demonstrate how such ideas are deployed in political debate; and provides a detailed assessment of a number of specifically troubling areas of exchange. 

This course investigates the cultural and political significance of food within Paris, with a distinctive literary approach. Focusing on the lively debates and controversies surrounding French culinary culture, it explores how food acts as a gateway to understanding dynamic changes in cities, global systems, and national identity formation. The course analyzes how food has been instrumental in fostering ideas of community and belonging. Through a rich selection of interdisciplinary readings, literary analyses, writing assignments, and exploratory excursions throughout Paris, the course examines how food influences personal identities, everyday life, and the political sphere, with a special emphasis on its representation in literature and the arts.