Alongside a selection of readings by canonical postcolonial writers and current political theorists, James and Du Bois provoke us to ask what it would take for the democratic world to be truly free. Insofar as it fits student interest, we will also explore the cave's considerable presence in visual culture, ranging from Renaissance painting through such recent and contemporary artists as Kelley, Demand, Hirschhorn, Kapoor, Sugimoto, and Walker, to films such as The Matrix. Four class debates will focus general concepts on a specific topic: the global implications of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Compromise? As large as they loom in our daily experience and our historical memory, these sorts of events--concrete, discrete things that happen in and around the political world--are often underestimated as catalysts of political change. What kinds of violations and deprivations can be recognized as harms in need of redress? It will consider how neo-liberalism is defined, the role of states in making and maintaining neo-liberalism, the centrality of markets to neo-liberal conceptions, and the kinds of politics that produced and are produced by neo-liberalism. While a fairly obscure and struggling author for much of his life, Orwell achieved worldwide fame after the Second World War with the publication of Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949). Important topics include: the colonial experience and independence; race relations and the African diaspora; national identity and authoritarian populist nationalism; war and state-building; American exceptionalism, religion, and foreign policy; criminal justice; and the origins and shape of the welfare state. CLASSES DREQ INSTRUCTORS TIMES CLASS# ENROLL CONSENT PSCI 201 - 01 (S) LEC Power,Politics,Democracy Amer Division II Matthew Tokeshi MR 2:35 pm - 3:50 pm Griffin 6 Why is immigration policy so contentious? Separate Ad Hoc Tribunals for crimes in Yugoslavia and those in Rwanda, in Sierra Leone and in Cambodia are giving way to a permanent International Criminal Court, which has begun to hand down indictments and refine its jurisdiction. Who gets to make these judgments, and according to what rules? Should they, perhaps, abandon Europe altogether and re-constitute themselves elsewhere? How is it that the expansion of markets led to the birth of democracy in some countries, but dictatorships in others? The course will be divided into three parts. The contests over power and the values that should animate it imbue politics with drama as well as pathos. The questions have sparked controversy since the origins of political thinking; the answers remain controversial now. cooperation? Or should feminists reject objectivity as a myth told by the powerful about their own knowledge-claims and develop an alternative approach to knowledge? Or knowledge? In general, the course will focus on competition between some the world's premier cyber powers, such as China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia, and the United States. Attention then turns to how post-World War II authoritariansm has been understood from a variety of perspectives, including: the "transitions to democracy" approach; analysis of problems of authoritarian control and authoritarian power-sharing; and examination of "authoritarian relience," among others. How are we to understand this contradiction as a matter of justice? This course has four parts differing in content and format. Exploration of these and other questions will lead us to examine topics such as presidential selection, the bases of presidential power, character and leadership, congressional-executive interactions, social movement and interest group relations, and media interactions. Are these conflicts related, and if so, how? What produces political change? What is "objectivity" anyway, and how has this norm changed through history? Brown "I did not tell [my son] that it would be okay, because I have never believed it would be okay." Treating the visual as a site of power and struggle, order and change, we will examine not only how political institutions and conflicts shape what images people see and how they make sense of them but also how the political field itself is visually constructed. Do black lives matter? Accompanying these interventions in the legal field is a deep and sustained inquiry into the subject of law: Who can appear before the law as the proper bearer of civil and human rights? As we examine the debates over inclusion, we will consider different views about the relationship among political, civil, and social rights as well as different interpretations of American identity, politics, and democracy. Who benefits from the idea of universal human rights? American Realism: Kennan, Kissinger and the American Style of Foreign Policy, In addition to their distinguished careers in government, both men have published well regarded and popular scholarship on various aspects of American foreign policy, international relations, and nuclear weapons. Not even the Civil War could resolve this issue, as demonstrated by the failure of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. [more], By the late 19th century, Jews across Europe were faced with an urgent political problem. use tab and shift-tab to navigate once expanded, Covid-19 is an ongoing concern in our region, including on campus. How are national security concerns balanced with the protection of civil rights and liberties? Courses - Political Science Attention will focus largely on the modern, twentieth and twenty-first century, presidency, though older historical examples will also be used to help us gain perspective on these problems. Modern Midas? Are environmental protections compatible with political freedom? Does economic development drive political change, or the other way around? What political problems most demand or resist theorization---and is "theory" even the right genre for critical intellectual work on politics now? What is democracy, how does it arise, and how might it fail? Transportation will be provided by the college. For more information, contact the Health Sciences office at (918) 595-7002. How and why has capitalism evolved in different forms in different countries? We will also explore the controversies and criticisms of his work from both the right and the left because of his political stance on issues ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to humanitarian intervention to free speech. What constitutes dangerous leadership, and what makes a leader dangerous? Second, was one side primarily responsible for the length and intensity of the Cold War in Europe? Our goal is to explain how and why welfare states vary and why there is so much inequality in the distribution of risk. to solidarity, where citizens share social risks as well as economic rewards. The course is based on the literature of multidisciplinary studies by leading scholars in the field, drawing from anthropology, gender studies, history, political science, religious studies, postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, and sociology. This seminar focuses on how Congress organizes itself to act as a collective body. [more], What is the role of race in American public opinion and voting? How has the relation between the governors and the governed changed over time, and what factors and events have shaped those relations? But what role can the welfare state play in the twenty-first century? This course will examine the problems and paradoxes that attend the exercise of the most powerful political office in the world's oldest democracy: Can an executive office be constructed with sufficient energy to govern and also be democratically accountable? Beginning from the presumption that change often has proximate as well as latent causes, this tutorial focuses on events as critical junctures in American politics. Why this hesitation? economics, and diplomacy, but the class is mostly concerned with ideas. As Louis Menand argues, "almost everything in the popular understanding of Orwell is a distortion of what he really thought and the kind of writer he was." What, if anything, is the difference between an ecosystem and a political community? Those whose proposals are accepted by a committee of faculty chosen by the department will continue on as thesis students, under the supervision of an advisor to be assigned by the department, for the remainder of the academic year; those whose proposals are not accepted will complete an abridged version of their project as an independent study in Winter Study but not continue in the honors program in the spring semester. These failures have created space for a politics of populism, ethno-nationalism, and resentment--an "anti-leadership insurgency" which, paradoxically, has catapulted charismatic (their critics would say demagogic) leaders to the highest offices of some of the largest nations on earth. that media convey). Possible texts include Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. We begin with examinations of these central notions and debates, and then move to investigations of the political thought of four key late modern Afro-Caribbean and African-American thinkers within the tradition: Walter Rodney, Sylvia Wynter, Cedric Robinson, and Angela Davis. This course investigates the political theory of Rastafari in order to develop intellectual resources for theorizing the concept of agency in contemporary Africana thought and political theory. Assessing leadership in the moment is complicated because leaders press against the bounds of political convention--as do ideologues, malcontents, and lunatics. Contemporary social science and the humanities overwhelmingly portray it as a critique of black politics in the latter's liberal, libertarian, and conservative forms. Second, through a series of regular exercises and assignments, it seeks to stimulate critical thinking about fundamental questions of research design (crafting a question, performing a literature review, selecting appropriate methodological tools, evaluating data sources) and hone an array of practical skills--whether interpretive, historical, or quantitative--involved in political science research. [more], A full year of independent study (481-482) under the direction of the Political Science faculty, to be awarded to the most distinguished candidate based upon competitive admissions. At the conclusion of the seminar, each student will submit a substantial and rigorous 10-12 page research proposal, with an annotated bibliography, for a roughly 35 page "article-length" thesis to be completed during Winter Study and the spring semester. What institutions and social conditions make political freedom possible? The goal of these discussions is to generate debates over the conceptual, historical, and policy significance of the subjects that we cover. How significant of a threat are concerns like nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear accidents? Do the mass media and political elites inform or manipulate the public? What policies paved the way for and resolved the crisis, how were they reached, and who participated in formulating them? Through these explorations, which will consider a wide variety of visual artifacts and practices (from 17th century paintings to the optical systems of military drones and contemporary forms of surveillance), we will also take up fundamental theoretical questions about the place of the senses in political life. What kinds of alternatives are considered as solutions to these problems? The third part surveys significant topics relevant to the themes of the course, with applications to current public policy issues, such as: power relations and autonomy in the workplace; asymmetric information and social insurance; economic inequality and distributive justice; equality of opportunity; the economics of health care; positional goods and the moral foundations of capitalism; social media and addiction; economic nationalism; behavioral economics; climate change and intergenerational equity; finance and financial crises; and rent-seeking. Some defenders argue that the media is a convenient scapegoat for problems that are endemic to human societies, while others claim that it actually facilitates political action aimed at addressing long-ignored injustices. Then, after a few discussion classes on migration, organized crime, political corruption, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other issues facing the current government of Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, we turn to a seminar-style discussion of student research projects. How can this be? In the second and third modules, students develop. Our concern with these events is not with why they happened as or when they did but, rather, with how they altered the American political order once they did--with how they caused shifts in political alignments, created demands for political action, or resulted in a reordering of political values. How can it be established and secured? What aspects of politics will endure the ravages of fire or pestilence? We will explore conflicts over how "the people" are defined in different moments, and we will examine how these conflicts connect to the exercise of state power in areas including territorial expansion, census taking, public health, immigration, social welfare, and policing. The desire for political freedom is as old as the ancient world and as new as today's movements and liberation struggles. [more], Every American president from Franklin Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy sought to avoid a commitment of ground forces to Vietnam. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Robert Williams, Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs, Ishmael Reed, and Amiri Baraka; films of Bruce Lee; music of Fred Ho; revolutionary praxis of Mao Tse Tung's Little Red Book and his writings on art and society; the Marxism of the Black Panther Party; the Afro-futurism of Sun Ra and Samuel Delany; and contemporary "Afro-pessimism." Importantly, this course is. What are the forces that shape whether citizens pay attention to politics, vote, work on campaigns, protest, or engage in other types of political action? and dominant media companies (Google, FaceBook, CNN, FOX, etc.). How has globalization changed the international system? Classics may include John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration, selections from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract, James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, Immanuel Kant's Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, John Stewart Mill's Three Essays On Religion, and John Dewey's A Common Faith. . It looks at how difference works and has worked, how identities and power relationships have been grounded in lived experience, and how one might both critically and productively approach questions of difference, power, and equity. Is democracy dangerous to the planet's health? Can public policy reverse these trends? How do we distinguish truly dangerous leadership from the perception of dangerous leadership? Born a Jew in Germany, Arendt lived through--and reflected deeply on--two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism, and the detonation of the first atomic bomb. Do science and technology serve to transform or reinforce power imbalances based on gender, race, and sexuality? (Note that in 2023 this course will also fulfill the senior seminar requirement for STS) [more], Debates over American national identity, or what it means to be an American, have intensified in recent years, with a resurgent white Christian nationalism challenging progressive aspirations for a multiracial, environmentally sustainable, liberal democracy. And what are their views on diversity, citizenship, and race, and how do heterodox leftists fit with conservative critiques of managerial liberalism? Social unrest over the definition of American morality and over who counts as an American. Introduction to International Relations: World Politics. The seminar will examine: original source materials; academic/popular interpretations and representations of the BPP; hagiography; iconography; political rebellion, political theory. They contend that it legitimates a view of the status quo, in which such terrible things are bound to happen without real cause. Does the concept fit well with, and reinforce, some institutions and configurations of power, and make others difficult to sustain (or even to conceive)? [more], Is the American party system what's wrong with American politics? In the latter half of the course, students will have the opportunity to design, conduct, and present their own final research projects. It deals with some of the most foundational questions that concern scholars of security studies: What accounts for great power conflict and cooperation? We will ask: What explains why some leaders have succeeded where others have failed? Particular attention will be devoted to the contrast between the views of Trump and those of the American foreign policy establishment over issues such as NATO, nuclear proliferation, Russia, immigration, terrorism, free trade, and conflicts in the Middle East. Who is equal? It considers several themes, including the slow emergence of a stable national state and the interplay between politics and economic change. [more], "Not me. With Tocqueville as a guide to thinking about political ethnography, this course investigates four central elements of political life--religion, education, difference, and crime and punishment--that simultaneously pose problems for and represent sites of progress in American democracy. Yet he stopped short of identifying new social movements with the Marxist notion of a revolutionary class. Politics is our focus. In this tutorial, we will investigate what Arendt's vision of politics stands to offer to those struggling to comprehend and transform the darkest aspects of the contemporary political world. Toward that end, we begin by considering competing explanations of political violence (ethnicity, democratization, natural-resource endowments, and predatory elites). Over the course of the semester, we will look at ten different types of events, ranging from those that seem bigger than government and politics (economic collapse) to those that are the daily grist of government and politics (speeches), in each instance juxtaposing two different occurrences of a particular category of event. In turn, our feelings of disgust for anything deemed waste shape political deliberation and action on environmental policy, immigration, food production, economic distribution, and much more. Finally, we will look at arguments that America has been "exceptional"--or, unlike other countries--as well as critiques of these arguments, to help us gain an understanding of future prospects for political transformation. Our focus, then, is nothing less than the story of America -- as told by those who lived it. Pessimists point out that most Americans know very little about politics and lack coherent political views, are easily manipulated by media and campaigns, and are frequently ignored by public officials anyway. Can certain forms of power be considered more feminist than others? and 3) What are strategies to counteract backsliding when it occurs? Coverage will include: Jewish liberalism, political Zionism, Yiddishist autonomism, messianic quietism, and other views. How did key leaders balance competing objectives and navigate difficult international circumstances? This course overcomes this divide, considering politics and society in the United States comparatively, from a variety of viewpoints and by authors foreign and American, historical and contemporary. The Impact of Black Panther Party Intellectuals on Political Theory. Having done preliminary reading on these two issues, students will conduct in-depth research into aspects of one of these questions and write a research paper. It will examine the various explanations that scholars have offered for why the conflict has persisted for so long, how it has evolved over time, the role that outside powers have played in shaping it, and how its perpetuation (or settlement) is likely to impact Middle East politics in the future. Many worry that the United States is threatened by anti-democratic actors intent on consolidating white nationalist power and corporate rule. This course explores the causes and consequences of democratic erosion through the lens of comparative politics. Who gains and loses from the idea that people have human rights? One central concern will be to consider the different ways of understanding "Asia", both in terms of how the term and the region have been historically constituted; another will be to facilitate an understanding some of the salient factors (geography, belief systems, economy and polity)--past and present--that make for Asia's coherence and divergences; a third concern will be to unpack the troubled notions of "East" and "West" and re-center Asia within the newly emerging narratives of global interconnectedness. What aspects of politics will endure the ravages of fire or pestilence? Throughout the semester, we will examine three distinct but inter-related aspects of international relations in East Asia: Security, economy, and culture by using some core concepts and theoretical arguments widely accepted in the study of international relations. This capstone seminar will explore these and related questions through an examination of the life and work of Jamaican novelist, playwright, cultural critic, and philosopher Sylvia Wynter. Does it reflect increased inequality in a fast-changing global economy? Why do we end up with some policies but not others? As a writing intensive course, attention to the writing process and developing an authorial voice will be a recurrent focus of our work inside and outside the classroom. out that most Americans know very little about politics and lack coherent political views, are easily manipulated by media and campaigns, and are frequently ignored by public officials anyway. Humanitarianism aims at rescue, striving to keep marginal people alive until some solution can be found. The Sentinels Scholar may submit her/his essay for consideration for honors in Political Science. [more], Hannah Arendt (1906-75) bore witness to some of the darkest moments in the history of politics. While the primary focus will be on the meaning of the texts in the context of their own times, contemporary applications of core concepts will also be considered. To this end, the department offers two routes to completing the major, each requiring nine courses. Why does an abundance of oil seem to solve some problems while often leading to perverse economic and political outcomes? But what role can the welfare state play in the twenty-first century? Then, we examine what contemporary democratic theorists have had to say about how racial equity might be achieved and how they have sought to advance this goal through their writing. This tension over what government is doing and what it should be doing is only heightened in times of crisis, such as the moment the country is in now.