Political Science

Topics in this introductory political science course include: politics; the state; democracy; elections; collective action; institutions and public policy.

This course provides an introduction to political and economic geography. The course advances two key arguments, namely that politics and the economy are (1) tightly intertwined and (2) innately geographical phenomenon. It explores how politics, the economy, and the environment are constituted through different sets of actors and their interrelationships. It mobilizes core geographical concepts, notably place, space, scale and territory, along with notions of power and resistance, to offer a distinctive perspective on processes of uneven development in the contemporary world.

Topics in this international relations course include: problems arising from environmental degradation; regulatory agreements; the roles of various actors; effectiveness of environmental regimes; the challenges of reaching international agreements for regulation; decision-making processes in the environmental field at the international level; the influence of non-government actors, companies, and advocacy groups on environmental legislation; the relationship between the environment, economy, and sustainable development.

This course discusses the concept of emerging countries and the transition of developing countries to emerging countries and on to developed countries. It provides an overview of economics, state and political institutions, and challenges of emerging countries.

This course introduces student government and politics of America, including its major elected offices (president, senators, congress persons and state governors), nomination process (caucuses and primaries), political parties and candidates, campaign issues and financing, and the general election. The course also analyzes the cleavages that divide American societies, seeking to understand how race, ethnicity, gender, religion, region, and sexual orientation affect people’s support for political parties and voting behavior.  In addition, there will be discussion on American foreign policy.  

This course provides an introduction to the theory and practices of economic policy-making. To understand economic policy-making, students take an economic as well as a political perspective. Students focus on the rationale behind economic policies, and seek to understand major changes in economic policy, and variation in policies across countries. Students also look at individual preferences for these policies, and their implications for the policy-making process. In the process, the course covers areas such as economic liberalization, financial regulation, labor market policies, and policies of poverty reduction and social insurance. The course takes an empirical and comparative approach, and its focus is generic, though most of the literature is concerned with policy-making in EU and OECD countries. 

This course presents a broad picture of international migration in recent history and a detailed picture of its recent trends. It introduces the analytical and empirical tools that are necessary to evaluate its impact on the host countries.

At an empirical level, this course provides a solid knowledge in Lebanese history, mainly in the major violent episodes of its trajectory: the civil war (1975-1990), Israeli occupation (1982-2000), and Hezbollah's intervention in Syria (since 2013). It also presents a specific understanding of a practice of power far removed from what can be observed in Western democracies. Without being an authoritarian regime, the Lebanese political staff has always had a particular definition of ruling, a special understanding of democracy, that goes beyond the usual features shared by consociational systems everywhere else in the world (Switzerland, Belgium, Bosnia). This course is hence thought-provoking in political science, as it introduces models of ruling usually unfamiliar, models that are more frequent than typically imagined. By doing so, the course also triggers a shared reflection on theoretical concepts of political science, and a questioning of the universality of some of what Western political sociology sees as basic elementary truths and rules of the game in politics-in-practice. The course addresses Lebanese contemporary history; the notion of militancy in contexts of violence; a critical notion of foreign intervention, peacemaking, peacebuilding, state building, reconciliation, and transitional justice; and a good command of a particular case of consociational politics.

Set as a new objective of the European Union (EU) by the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) has since proven to be one of the most dynamic EU policy-making domains. It now encompasses key individual policies addressing fundamental concerns of European citizens: police cooperation, judicial cooperation in criminal and civil matters, border management, visa and asylum policies etc. This course analyzes the progressive development of the AFSJ by providing insights on three main considerations: who are the individual and collective actors contributing to that policy domain; which theories and concepts help us to understand the creation and evolutions of the AFSJ; and what are the key reforms, debates, and controversies of the individual AFSJ policies. 

This course examines concepts and debates relating to public health, health inequalities, and health policy in a global context. It enables students to understand the policy making process, to analyze the roles of key health policy actors, and to consider the relationship between evidence and policy in relation to health.