Political Science

This course provides an overview of the major debates in comparative judicial politics and an introduction to the political science of law and courts, a branch of the discipline known as judicial politics. This is not a course on constitutional adjudication law, and the focus is not on doctrinal analysis or close reading of cases (though cases are discussed to illustrate and examine the topics of the course). Instead, constitutional courts are evaluated as political institutions and judges as political actors. After theorizing judicial review by introducing students to concepts such as the government of judges, juristocracy, and political constitutionalism, specific cases are studied. Topics include: judicial review models across time and space; constraints on judicial power; conflicts between constitutional courts and the other branches of government; decision making within the judicial hierarchy; judicial appointments. The focus of this course is comparative with an emphasis on constitutional courts in advanced democracies; however, courts and legal systems in new democracies and authoritarian regimes are discussed as well.

This course provides a socio-historical approach to studying and analyzing the construction of social policies from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. It demonstrates how the construction of social policies is the result of a combination of factors that follow one another over time, leading to more or less slow transformations marked mainly by the "administration" of society. With this in mind, the course stresses the importance of the various configurations and coalitions of social and institutional actors (public and private) that succeeded one another over the period; the variability of politico-administrative systems, political regimes, and governance; and the changes in the frame of reference for public action. The challenge is to study both the process of the emergence of these policies (public assistance, social protection, and social insurance) and, more generally, the welfare state, as well as the new forms of political regulation of society (through, for example, the question of the progressive regulation of the state). It also focuses on the different levels of action, from local and municipal to transnational and national. The course also imparts the methodological and conceptual tools needed to carry out original research on these issues.

This course examines the security challenges facing the Pacific Islands and, in particular, Australia’s role in the security of the region. This includes cooperation on transnational crime and counterterrorism; intervention and stabilization; criminal justice assistance; governance capacity-building; natural disaster response; and substantial development assistance. It also considers ways in which Pacific understandings of security differ from Australia’s, and the implications of this for Australia’s engagement with Pacific Island governments, security agencies and societies. It also assesses the outlook over the next decade for security in this strategically important and rapidly changing region.

This course concerns the “Indo-Pacific” space, which has both a geographic and a geostrategic dimension. The course questions these different representations of space, their political use, and the related cooperation policies, at the intersection of military and development issues.

This course gives insight into the making of European policies and their consequences for its citizens. The course uses both a bottom-up and a top-down perspective and focuses on the forces that speed up or slow down European integration, the formal and informal procedures by which European policy is made, and the effects of European decision-making for politics, society, and citizens. The course uses theoretical perspectives from public administration and political science. The knowledge gained from these insights is assessed using a written exam. Special attention is paid to: Brexit; the role of the EU in the financial crisis; the role of the EU in the refugee crisis; euroscepsis; enlargement of the EU and its consequences; what are the formal and informal venues for lobbying? What is the most effective strategy to influence decision-making on this issue? theoretical and practical insights will come together in a paper that you write on a case of lobbying in Europe; a case selected by yourself by either a civil society actor or governmental actor. Questions addressed in the paper include: how does EU decision-making work in this issue area and what is a realistic lobby strategy?

This course provides a comparative introduction to the topic of political authoritarianism. Authoritarianism, understood as non-democratic governance, is one of the main scourges of modern politics. Though there was a wave of democratization following the collapse of the Soviet Union, authoritarianism has persisted in numerous guises, including the semi-authoritarian regimes that have developed in many of the so-called "democratizing" states. In gaining an understanding of contemporary authoritarianism, students will develop a more nuanced appreciation of the variety of different ways in which power can be exercised. 

This course provides a conceptual and historical approach of nations, states, and nationalism in Europe from the late 19th century to the present. It examines the transnational dimension of European political frameworks and considers current political issues in the light of European history. The course fosters analytical distance and questions the nation-centered view of the world, familiarizes with the academic debates on nation-building and nationalism, and examines the historical processes and steps that have led to the success of the national category.

This course offers a study of corruption and accountability. It examines the causes and consequences of corruption, as well as types of corruption: judicial, political, private sector, and organized crime. This course explores means to regulate corruption including through international regulation, good government, transparency, and democracy.

This is a course on the contemporary domestic politics of China. Students focus on how the Chinese political institutions operate today by addressing a variety of issues and aspects: the evolution of the party-state from 1949 to the present; the political economy of the Reform era; the development and role of the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese political system. Taking an intersectional approach, students also assess other contemporary issues faced by China, including migration, social movements, and media censorship. The course concludes with an examination of China's foreign relations and its future, such as the debate over China's role in the global economy and international security.

This course focuses on the sociology of the State and its relations with society in contemporary Russia. Historical and political sociologists have focused on the state in the form it has taken in the West since the Middle Ages. These essential and fundamental analyses form the starting point for study of the sociological reality of the state in post-Soviet Russia. Using the tools of the historical sociology of politics and comparative politics, the course studies the political transition following the collapse of the USSR, the reform of public action, the trajectories of elites and state agents, and the reform of the state and its authoritarian modernization. Ultimately, the course considers what makes the recent transformations of the Russian state so singular on the one hand and so banal on the other, in the context of the global neoliberal modernization of the state and public action.