Courses
Course Archive
Courses Winter 2005
Please find below a list of courses offered by the department during the Winter 2005 quarter.
20701. International Relations in East Asia. Will China become a threat to international stability as its power continues to grow in the coming years? Will the twenty-first century be the century of the Asia-Pacific? Is the East Asian model of development sustainable? How does globalization affect security, political economy, human rights, and environment in East Asia? How should the international society deal with the North Korean nuclear crisis? This course aims to answer these questions. We will pay special attention to East Asian histories, particularly since 1945. Topics to be addressed include: patterns of conflict and cooperation in East Asia, security arrangements, international political economy, globalization, human rights, and post 9/11 new security. D. Chen. Winter.
21320. Governance in International Politics. This course explores governance in international politics in both theory and in practice, answering questions such as: What are the sources of governance? Who governs? Are powerful states more or less subject to governance? And given the nature of politics, what are the constraints on successful governance? We will then apply these ideas to major site of governance (or lack thereof) in international politics: the global political economy, security, the UN, NATO, humanitarian intervention and the environment. M. Murray. Winter.
22100. African American Politics. This course will explore both the historical and contemporary political behavior of African Americans, examining the multitude of ways in which African Americans have engaged in politics and political struggle in the United States. In some cases, the political behavior of black Americans has manifested itself through traditional modes of participation such as voting, the running of black candidates for public office or involvement in political parties. In other cases, African Americans have worked to gain, exercise and maintain the rights guaranteed to all citizens in the U.S. through activities deemed outside "traditional" political participation. To understand such different approaches to the liberation of black people, we must pay special attention to the attitudes, world views and ideologies that structure and influence African-American political behavior. An analysis of difference and stratification in black communities and its resulting impact on political ideologies and mobilization will be a crucial component of this course. We will consistently seek to situate the politics of African Americans in the larger design we call American politics. C. Cohen. Winter.
22515. The Political Nature of the American Judicial System. PQ: PLSC 28800 or equivalent. This course aims to introduce students to the political nature of the American legal system. In examining foundational parts of the political science literature on courts conceived of as political institutions, the seminar will focus on the relationship between the courts and other political institutions. The sorts of questions to be asked include: Are there interests that courts are particularly prone to support? What effect does congressional or executive action have on court decisions? What impact do court decisions have? While the answers will not always be clear, students should complete the seminar with an awareness of and sensitivity to the political nature of the American legal system. G. Rosenberg. Winter.
23110/33100. Gender and "Development." (=GNDR 23501) This course will analyze issues of gender and development studies. Questions discussed include: How does the gender division of labor between unpaid household labor and paid employment intersect with government policies and actions of international organizations in less developed countries? What is the gendered construction of piece work in the home, and of factory work in export processing zones? What are the attitudes of governments in less developed countries and in developed countries toward sex work, sex tourism, and sex trafficking? How do structural adjustment programs condition the lives of women and relations between men and women? How do issues of environmental ethics, development, and gender intersect? What are the circumstances of sexual freedom or lack of it, as well as freedom to express sexual orientation, in societies of Africa or South Asia? What role are women and members of sexual minorities playing in social movements of democracy and self-determination in less developed countries and in transnational movements to confront corporate globalization? I. Young. Winter. (A)
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. Winter.
23400/32800. Capitalism in Modern Europe. (=HIST 23300/33300) This course investigates the emergence of capitalism in Europe and the world as a whole between the early sixteenth and the late eighteenth centuries. We discuss the political and cultural as well as the economic sources of capitalism and explore Marxist, neoclassical, and cultural approaches. W. Sewell. Winter. (C)
26400. Islamic Politics. This senior seminar examines the specific historical processes and particular power relations that have given rise to the recent phenomenon of radical religious expression in the Middle East. We investigate claims that the contraction of welfare states, the "blowback" from U.S. imperial policies, the corruption and brutality of prevailing regimes, and the demise of leftist movements have each, or in combination, contributed to the rise of diverse Islamicist movements. We also explore explicitly the variation among movements and debates - the ways in which diverse, vibrant communities of argument have arisen over what makes a Muslim a Muslim, what Islam means, and what, if any, its political role should be. The course thus charts how discourses about Muslim identity and Islam operate in context, investigating the changing public debates among self-avowed Muslims. We shall ask questions such as: What is the relationship between ideas and organized political activity? How do modern technological innovations, such as satellite television, foster new transnational collectivities and under what conditions could such collectivities shape political outcomes and/or understandings of piety? To what extent are current scholarly explanations about the causes and logics of Islamicist movements compelling? In what ways are these movements simply instances of larger global phenomena? L. Wedeen. Winter.
26810. Political Conservatism. What does it mean to be a conservative in politics? Today the term covers a range of ideological positions, not all of which are easily reconciled. Conservatives are said to favor small government, for example, but also a diminished separation between church and state. The term "neo-conservative" is applied to thinkers who favor a deeply interventionist foreign policy, while in previous decades conservatives were chastised for being excessively isolationist. This course examines some of the foundational texts in the development of conservative thought. We begin with important works by Edmund Burke, David Hume, Jos Ortega y Gasset, and Michael Oakeshott. We'll also read pieces that have had an enormous impact on contemporary U.S. politics, including William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale, Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative, Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, and Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations. The course should be of interest for conservatives who wish to get clear on their own principles, and for liberals who wish to understand the best insights of their adversaries. C. Cyrenne. Winter.
27600/37600. War and the Nation-State. The aim of this course is to examine the phenomenon of war in its broader socio-economic context during the years between the emergence of the modern nation-state and the end of World War II. J. Mearsheimer. Winter. (D)
29800. B.A. Paper Colloquium. Required of fourth-year political science concentrators who plan to write a B.A. paper. Students participate in both Autumn and Winter Quarters but register only once (in either the Autumn or Winter Quarter). The colloquium, which may be organized along methodological or field lines, meets weekly in the Autumn Quarter and biweekly in the Winter Quarter to provide students with a forum within which research problems are addressed, conceptual frameworks are refined and drafts of the B.A. paper are presented and critiqued. Autumn, Winter.
29900. B.A. Paper. Required of fourth-year political science concentrators who write a B.A. paper. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. This is a reading and research course for independent study related to B.A. research and B.A. paper preparation. Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.
30500. Introduction to Data Analysis. This course is an introduction to the research methods practiced by quantitative political scientists. The first part lays out the enterprise of empirical research: the structure and content of theories, the formulation of testable hypotheses, the logic of empirical tests, and the consideration of competing hypotheses. The second part considers the implementation of empirical research: the potential barriers to valid inferences, the strengths and limitations of research designs, and empirical representations of theoretical constructs. The final part provides hands-on experience with the two kinds of analyses most frequently performed by quantitative political researchers: contingency tables and regression. M. Hansen. Winter. (E)
34210. The Political Philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Enrollment limited to 16. This seminar will consider the political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We will begin with Rousseau's critique the 1st and 2nd Discourses and then move to his positive project the Discourse on Political Economy, the Geneva Manuscript, and the Social Contract. The seminar will conclude with an exploration of the Considerations on the Government of Poland and the fragmentary Constitutional Project for Corsica. A. Davis. Winter. (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. Winter. (B)
39000. Global Justice. Are obligations of justice confined to members of a single society or nation-state or do they extend to relations among distant peoples? This course will consider arguments on both sides, but take a position that obligations of justice should be thought of as global in scope. It will then consider theories of global distributive justice, cosmopolitan democracy, moral responsibility and human rights in the context of international inequality in resources and power. Among the issues we will analyze using political philosophy are: Third World debt; environmental policy; trade, investment, and patents; democracy and international organizations, gender and human rights. Among authors read will likely be: Immanuel Kant, Onora O'Neill, John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, Thomas Pogge, Alan Wood, David Held, Peter Singer, Drucilla Cornell. I. Young. Winter. (A)
41900. Rationality and Collective Action. In this course, we will study critically theories of collective action with an added focus on those proposed by the Rational Choice paradigm. First, we will discuss what demands we ought to place on a theory of collective action if it is to do justice to the ontology of the phenomenon it purports to study. To that end, we will engage some literature on social theory and epistemology of the social sciences. Then we will look at the substantive contents of the rational choice approaches (especially those deriving from Olson and Schelling) together with some criticisms levelled against them from alternative approaches and will inquire about their alleged empirical relevance. Finally, we will study some new tools of game theory that hold the promise of placing the rationalist theory of collective action on a firmer footing and of making it more operational and testable. Some familiarity with rational choice approaches and game theory is desirable but not required. L. Medina. Winter. (C)
43800. Rational International Politics. D. Snidal. Winter. (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. Winter. (C)
46000. Sources of International Order. This course in international relations theory builds on students' prior graduate training to explore four distinct but overlapping sources of international order: coercion, norms, institutions, and contractual bargains. Students will discuss and critique existing literature in all four areas and write a major paper. The course presumes students have had some prior coursework at the graduate level in international relations theory, security studies, or international political economy. C. Lipson. Winter. (D)
49400. Nations and Nationalism. This course explores the recent literature on the formation of nations and the development of nationalism, with attention to other forms of subnational and supranational organization and identity (e.g., class, diaspora, empire). The shift from more structuralist and social determinations of nationhood to discursive and constructivist approaches will be investigated, as well as the intersection of nationality and "race" with gender and class. Some readings will focus on ethnic conflict, its causes, consequences, and possible resolution. L. Wedeen. Winter. (C)
50201. Religions and the Political Order. (=RETH 50201) An advanced introduction to basic ordering concepts in the study of social and political ethics. We will explore the underlying presuppositions that frame each thinker's perspective and that bear directly or indirectly on political and social life. Special attention will be paid to the theorist's understanding of the role of religion in public life. Readings from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Mill. J. Elshtain. Winter. (A).
50300. The Just War Tradition. (=RETH 44800) An exploration of the tradition of just war thinking from St. Augustine through Michael Walzer, James Turner Johnson and others. We will examine critically attempts to limit the occasions for war and the tactics and strategies deployed in war. J. Elshtain. Winter. (A)
51000. Special Topics in Political Methodology. J. Grynaviski. Winter. (E)
52900. Renaissance Florence: Political Theory meets Social History. This course adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of politics and society in Renaissance Florence, integrating political theory and social history. We will read primary sources, standard histories, classic interpretations, as well as examine new empirical data pertaining to the Florentine republics, oligarchies and Medici regimes of the Medieval and Renaissance eras. Primary authors include Bruni, Dante, Savonarola, Machiavelli and Guicciardini; historians consulted will be Najemy, Rubinstein, Butters, Stephens, Martines, Baron and Brucker. Mr. Padgett will make available original statistical data and analyses on the social networks and economic markets undergirding the political ideas, institutions and events that we consider. Renaissance intellectual history will be placed in the context of the political, social and economic context of thirteenth through fifteenth century Florence, thereby asking questions about mutual influence. J. McCormick, J. Padgett. Winter. (A)
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. Winter. (D)
