Courses
Course Archive
Courses Winter 2002
Please find below a list of courses offered by the department during the Winter 2002 quarter.
21600/32600. World Politics in the 20th Century, 1945-1991: A History. This course provides a survey of major wars, the development of states' military and financial capacity, imperial retreat, diplomatic alignments and alliances, arrangements for international trade and investment, as well as efforts to create international institutions. It surveys the history of modern inter-state relations in the latter half of the 20th century. It focuses on the Cold War and the development of an integrated world economy under U.S. leadership. It deals with key elements of international history needed for further study of international politics and IR theory, including long-term trends in diplomacy, economic development, and military force. C. Lipson. (D)
21700. Game Theory. This course will present the most commonly used techniques of game theory, that is, the branch of rational choice theory that deals with interdependent actions. It will focus on simple games and examples relevant to political science with and without uncertainty, and in both static and dynamic settings. The course assumes some knowledge of algebra, basic calculus and elementary probability theory. L. Medina.
21800. Global Governance (=INST 21800). Massive population movements, loss of rain forests, terrorism: clearly many problems in world politics transcend sovereign boundaries. Moreover, even problems that might not at first seem international failed states, pandemics, extreme poverty, etc. in fact demand the attention of an international community that values human rights and democracy. Not just states, but non-governmental organizations (NGO's), the media, and the general public play an important role when it comes to these issues. Importantly, these problems fall outside issues traditionally addressed in IR. Their growing salience suggests that perhaps new understandings of security, and new understandings of the community that needs to be kept secure, are beginning to take shape at the global level. This seminar surveys a number of problems from the perspective of global governance. We ask, how and why are problems becoming understood as 'global'? How are they being governed by the international community and what alternate forms of governance could be imagined? The course is divided into two parts, theory and applications. Part One examines how global governance emerges among states and non-state actors. We also examine the values that anchor global governance activities, how global actors define community and how global governance might emerge democratically. Part Two considers a number of particular global problems in light of that theoretical framework. J. Mitzen.
23100. Democracy and the Information/Technology Revolution. The revolution in information technologies has serious implications for democratic societies. We concentrate, though not exclusively, on the United States. We look at which populations have the most access to technology-based information sources (the digital divide), and how individual and group identities are being forged online. We ask how is the responsiveness of government being affected, and how representative is the online community. Severe conflict over the tension between national security and individual privacy rights in the U.S., United Kingdom and Ireland will be explored as well. We analyze both modern works (such as those by Turkle and Gilder) and the work of modern democratic theorists (such as Habermas). M. Dawson.
23300. Springtime for Hitler and Germany: The Advocates of the Aesthetic State. This course seeks to introduce students to the idea of the aesthetic state and the rise of political modernism. Readings will include: Benjamin, Mussolini, Marinetti, Schmitt, Rosenberg, and Hitler among others. The aim of the course is to try to make sense out of the rise of politics for politics sake in the first half of the 20th century. B. Silberman.
23800/43800. Plato's Laws (=FNDL 23400, LLSO 28500, SCTH 30300). PQ: Enrollment limited. Open to undergraduates with consent of instructor. An introductory reading of Plato's Laws with attention to such themes as the following: war and peace; courage and moderation; rule of law; music, poetry, drinking, and education; sex, marriage, and gender; property and class structure; crime and punishment; religion and theology; and philosophy. N. Tarcov. (A)
24700. Politics of the European Union. PQ: Admission to the Winter Paris Program. This course is designed around a series of lectures whose topics range from the History of the European Union, its institutional system, the study of the European political forces, the common policies, and the role of the EU in a globalizing world. Staff.
24800/34800. Ethics in International Affairs and Development (=HMRT 248/348). This course examines issues of normative judgment in the context of international affairs and economic and social development. It introduces several basic conceptual frameworks for such normative analysis: utilitarianism, rights theories, capabilities approach and others. It compares and applies these frameworks to specific issues such as war and peace, intervention, international distributive justice, debt and development immigration and refugees, environment and development. Among authors we are likely to read are Robert Goodin, Joseph Carens, Simon Caney, James Woodward, Onora O'Neill, Amartya Sen, and Martha Nussbaum. I Young. (D)
25100/31600. Ancient and Medieval Political Thought (=CLAS 20300/30300). This course will provide an upper level survey of political thought from Homer to Aquinas, with central emphasis falling on the sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Tacitus, and Augustine. We will investigate, among other topics, these thinkers' accounts of the origins, nature, and problems of human sociality, their diverse theories of justice, their varying efforts to draw connections between ethical and political reasoning or between morality and law (whether mortal or divine), as well as their different stresses on utopian and realist approaches to political thought. D. Allen. (A)
25400/35400. Marxism, Peronism, and the National Question in Latin America (=LTAM 25400/35400). This course will analyze the political and ideological convergences and conflicts between Marxists and Peronists in 20th century Argentina, and the implications of both movements for the idea of nation and national development in the region. S. Amaral.
25500. Societies and the Social Sciences: Violence and Civil Strife. Intrastate or civil wars have become the dominant form of war. Out of ninety-six armed conflicts that took place between 1989 and 1996 only five were wars between sovereign states ("interstate wars"). Civil wars (both ethnic and non-ethnic) tend to be deadlier than interstate wars. What makes their violence even worse is that they primarily, and often deliberately, target civilians: eight out of ten people killed in contemporary civil wars have been civilians. Moreover, in many cases, victimizers and victims tend to know each other; they are neighbors who had been living together peacefully. We will analyze and attempt to understand the nature of violence in civil wars via both a critical reading of descriptions of this phenomenon and the application of social science tools to it. S. Kalyvas.
27800/38400. Introduction to Chinese Politics. This course offers a historical and thematic survey of Chinese politics in the twentieth century. Particular attention is given to the formation of the party-state, the imposition of central planning, the Great Leap forward, the Cultural Revolution, reform and liberalization, and prospects for democracy. The discussion is framed in terms that allow comparison with other countries. D. Yang. (C)
28800/48800. Introduction to Constitutional Law (=LLSO 23900). This course is an introduction to the constitutional doctrines and political role of the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on its evolving constitutional priorities and its response to basic governmental and political problems, including maintenance of the federal system, promotion of economic welfare, and protection of individual and minority rights. G. Rosenberg. (B)
28900/39900. Strategy. This course is about American national security policy in the post-Cold War world, especially the principal issues of military strategy that are likely to face the United States in the next decade. The course is structured in five parts. The first component examines the key changes in strategic environment since 1990. The second looks at the effects of multipolarity on American grand strategy and basic national goals. The third block focuses on nuclear strategy. The fourth section is about conventional strategy. The last block discusses the future of war and peace in the Pacific Rim. J. Mearsheimer. (D)
29500/39700. International Relations: Transnationalism in a Post-Colonial World (=INST 29500/39700). Dominant conceptions in international relations privilege states by treating them as natural and exclusive actors in international relations; privilege the Western world by treating it as the center; and privilege the balance of power and deterrence by treating military force as the primary means of self-help in allegedly anarchical space beyond state frontiers. This course focuses on national and transnational civil society as the arena of action. We address a variety of topics such as nationalism; transnational identities generated by migration and refugee flows; environmentalism; human rights; cyber space; religions; and internal wars. J. Mitzen.
30300. Survey of American Politics. A survey of some of the main themes, topics and approaches in the study of American politics and government. J. Brehm. (B)
30800. Game Theory. This course introduces concepts of game theory, that is, the mathematical study of interdependent decisions, and some basic instances of its uses in political science. Its goal is to present the basic solution concepts most widely used in the literature (rationalizability, Nash equilibrium, sub-game perfect equilibrium and perfect Bayesian equilibrium, core) in a way that requires little, if any, previous mathematical background. L. Medina. (E)
31200. Political Philosophy: Plato (=FNDL 29200, LLSO 29200). This course is a close reading of Plato's Parmenides. J. Cropsey. (A)
35000. Race and Politics in the U.S. The course examines some of the ways that attributions of racial difference have shaped American politics. We will see how ideas about race affect policy preferences, vote choice and other aspects of political behavior. We will consider the role of race compared to other explanatory variables. Some of the specific topics we will address include affirmative action, welfare reform and redistricting and minority voting. M. Dawson. (B)
35800. Formal Approaches to Comparative Politics. PQ: PLSC 308. This course presents some of the applications of the rational choice paradigm to comparative politics. It consists on three parts of uneven length: civil and ethnic conflict, transitions to democracy and democratic regimes, being the latter the longest one. Within that last chapter, the course will cover the analysis of elections, legislatures, political parties and politico-economic environments (e.g. distributive taxation and public goods). Students with some background in mathematics (especially, algebra and calculus) will benefit the most although other students unfamiliar with, but willing to engage in, formal analysis are also welcome. L. Medina. (C)
36600. Value Pluralism (=PHIL 31700). A study of pluralistic theories of moral value, focusing on their motivations, structure, and implications. Readings will be from Aristotle, Herder, Berlin, and contemporary writers. C. Larmore. (A)
37000. U.S. Courts as Political Institutions (=LAWS 51300). An examination of the ways in which United States courts affect public policy. Questions include: How do the procedures, structures, and organization of the courts affect judicial outcomes? Are there interests that courts are particularly prone to support? What effect does congressional or executive impact, including judicial selection, have on court decisions? What are the difficulties with implementation of judicial decisions? G. Rosenberg. (B)
39100. More's Utopia (=SCTH 39100). This will be an introductory reading of the novel, with attention to the sentimental sensibility, the unreliable narrator, intimations of post-modernism, and various narratological high-jinks. R. Lerner.
44100. Social Theory of International Relations. Limit to 20 students. Introduction to philosophical aspects of international relations. Examination of debates in contemporary IR theory in light of recent work in social theory and philosophy on ontology, epistemology, and method, and especially on the relationship of material forces to ideas, agency to structure, and the nature and purpose of social scientific inquiry. IR scholarship addressed includes neorealist, neoliberal, constructivist, post-modern, critical, transnational, feminist, global governance, and normative approaches. Some prior familiarity with this scholarship is desirable, but since the issues are endemic to the social sciences and a third of the reading will be from social theory, the course may also be viewed as an introduction to the philosophy of social science, using IR as an extended case study. A. Wendt. (D)
45000. Comparative Capitalisms I. This course is a general introduction to theories of capitalist organization and development. Foundational works by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Karl Polanyi will be reviewed in addition to more contemporary theoretical writings in neoclassical economics, economic geography, political economy and economic sociology. G. Herrigel. (C)
47300. Complexity. J. Padgett. (E)
47600. Classics of International Relations. Most courses in international relations focus on the current literature at the expense of the great works in the field. Without a working knowledge of Thucydides, Kant, or Schelling, graduate students are unable to place theoretical propositions into a historical context. This course surveys the history of international relations theory through a close reading of ten classic works in the field. Among the questions that will be addressed: how far has IR theory developed since Thucydides? How closely do theories of international relations mirror the era in which they were written? In what ways are these widely cited works simplified or misstated in the current literature? D. Drezner. (D)
47700. Coll: French Revolution (=HIST 54800). In this course we will discuss recent trends in the historiography of the French old regime and the Revolution. W. Sewell. (C)
48100. Seminar in Comparative Politics II. This two-quarter course sequence gives graduate students exposure to the major debates, topics, and methods of comparative politics. Topics include: political development and modernization; democracy, dictatorship and regime change; revolution; ethnic mobilization and conflict; political culture and political attitudes; preference formation, social alignments, political parties, and institutions; interest intermediation; states and markets; and the comparative method. S. Kalyvas, S. Stokes. (C)
48400. Workshop on International Security Policy. This workshop aims to provide interested members of the Chicago community with an opportunity to meet and discuss a wide range of international security topics. Special emphasis will be placed on looking at important policy issues that lend themselves to social science research. Relevant topics include: 1) NATO expansion, 2) America's grand strategy after the Cold War, 3) the rise of China, 4) nuclear proliferation, 5) the state of Russia's military, and 6) stability in the Persian Gulf. Speakers will include policymakers, as well as scholars and graduate students doing policy-relevant research. C. Glaser, J. Mearsheimer, R. Pape.
51000. Sovereignty and the Origin of the Nation-State (=LAWS 93002). This year-long seminar will read books and articles concerning the transition from medieval feudal society to the "Westphalian" territorial nation-state. We will explore how international politics and international law changed during this period, and we will examine the implications of these changes for modern claims that the Westphalian paradigm is dissolving. The seminar will meet three times per term, probably outside the law school. The reading will be heavy (approximately one book or book-length assignment per session). Students will be expected to write short reaction papers in advance of each meeting. Writing credit will be awarded. Interested students should petition, via email, Professor Goldsmith for entry into the seminar, stating pertinent background and interest in the subject. J. Goldsmith.
52000. Political Theory Workshop (=SCTH 52000). The workshop is a forum for the presentation of new research in all varieties of political theory and political philosophy, including work in the history of political thought; contributions to normative political philosophy; theoretical engagements with problems in contemporary politics and public policy; and theoretical reflection on fundamental political concepts or phenomena. Our weekly seminars include presentations of work in progress by graduate students, as well as University of Chicago faculty, faculty at other Chicago-area institutions, and a small number of invited guests from around the country. Graduate students serve as discussants for all presentations. The Workshop subscribes to no particular methodology or political ideology, and welcomes participants from all departments and disciplines. D. Allen, C. Larmore, J. Levy, N. Tarcov, I Young.
53000. Seminar on Great Power Politics. The specific aim of this course is to introduce students to some of the key policy issues involving the great powers that dominate the post-Cold War world. Three topics will receive special emphasis: European security, Asian security, and the role of the United States in the larger world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is expected that all students in the class will be well-versed in international relations theory, and will bring their theoretical insights to bear on the relevant policy issues. The broad goal is to encourage students to appreciate that international relations theory and important policy issues are inextricably linked to each other. J. Mearsheimer. (D)
54500. Workshop on American Politics. This workshop explores recent work in a variety of the subdisciplines of American politics. Our agenda is as diverse as the interests of our participants, ranging from the "new institutionalism" in both its historical and formal varieties, to studies of agenda setting, to quantitative studies of the electoral process. We are catholic in our substantive and methodological approaches. Sessions include paper presentations by workshop participants, readings and discussions of important new work, and several presentations by visiting scholars. J. Brehm, C. Cohen, M. Dawson, G. Rosenberg.
54600. Workshop on East Asia (=ECON 57100). This workshop focuses on current social science research on East Asian societies, including the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. Presentations are by university faculty and advanced graduate students who conduct research on these societies, throughout the social science disciplines. Two to three outside speakers are hosted each quarter. D. Yang, B. Silberman.
55500. Workshop on Comparative Politics. This workshop invites scholars whose work is historical, sociological, anthropological, and political to cultivate a forum that is highly interdisciplinary in nature. We have addressed issues such as state building, democratic theory, economic policy, the welfare state, and cultural cleavages in past years. We invite graduate students with area expertise to raise theoretical issues about their data and interpretations that would be of interest to a wider circle of social scientists. As in the past, there will be no particular geographic or temporqal focus in the workshop. S. Kalyvas, L. Medina, S. Stokes, L. Wedeen.
55600. Workshop on Social Theory (=HIST 98100). This workshop explores issues in social theory across a variety of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. The emphasis is less on developing social theory per se than on exploring in a sustained fashion the social theoretical implications of the participants' substantive work. Themes to be addressed are likely to include the relationship between social and cultural transformations; questions of the public sphere, civil society, and democracy; as well as the relations between modernist and postmodernist forms of social theory. W. Sewell.
58500. Workshop on Organizations and Political Sociology. Combining political science and sociology, this workshop focuses on organizations and social networks - both the micro underpinnings of their construction (identity and exchange) and the macroconsequences of their aggregation (states and markets). This year we will focus in particular on the effect of organizational or network structure on the patterning of temporal sequence and change. G. Herrigel, J. Padgett.
59400. Workshop on International Relations. Part of the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security (PIPES), this is a yearlong workshop for advanced graduate students engaged in their own research projects in international relations. PIPES meetings provide a forum for advanced graduate students, university faculty, and outside guests to present their research. Topics include the full range of international politics and theory, including political economy, security studies, foreign policy, international law and organizations, international environmental issues, critical international relations theory, and a wide variety of regional issues. This work is methodologically diverse, encompassing historical research, mathematical modeling, quantitative studies, and interpretive approaches. C. Lipson, D. Snidal.
