Informació de la Guia Docent

Sistema d'avaluació i qualificació

Teaching Guide Information

Presentation

What is power, who gets it, and why? What is politics for? How does politics govern our life? When do countries go to war? Is politics an emotional issue? Can these questions be studied scientifically?

These are some of the issues that we will consider during our broad overview of the discipline of political science.

During each lecture, you will learn about past and ongoing debates of political interest, through the study of different and even opposing theories and approaches.

The course content is interdisciplinary in nature. We will rely on major subfields of political science, including political theory, international relations, and critical theory.

We will also discuss the nature of social scientific research and how it can be used to inform thinking about pressing political issues. At the end of the course, you should have a working knowledge of core political science concepts and be able to apply those concepts to real-world problems.

This module’s bibliography is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. Feel free to contact me if you have any question on the readings.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students are expected to:

• Know the different epistemological approaches and research methods that can be used in political science;
• Understand the importance and consequences of theoretical and methodological choices to the study of politics;
• Gain the ability to gather and evaluate arguments and data from different sources;
• Be familiar with approaches and pressing debates from the broader political sciences, including IR and political theory;
• Develop critical thinking, analytical skills, and the ability to formulate and support clear thesis statements;
• Further develop writing and verbal communication skills.

Contents

Topic 1: Introduction

• Overview of the module: 22922 content and expectations
• Introduction to Political Science

Compulsory Readings

Goodin, R. (2011). The State of the Discipline, the Discipline of the State. The Oxford Handbook of Political Science

Topic 2 - Is political science a science? Lecture I

• How do theory and method relate to each other in the study of politics?
• How do ontological and epistemological assumptions influence how we investigate political phenomena?
• How useful do you find Walliman's recommendations/insights on data? What ontological and epistemological positions do you think his focus reveals?
• Why is it important to broaden and deepen our approach to political “science”?

Compulsory Readings

Robinson, Fiona. (2001). Exploring social relations, understanding power, and valuing care. In Ethics and international relations (pp. 56-80). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Walliman, Nicholas. 2011. Research Methods: The Basics. London: Routledge. Read Chapter 6: “The Nature of Data.”

Topic 3 - Is political science a science? Lecture II

This week we will focus on some questions that were introduced on week 2:

• How do theory and method relate to each other in the study of politics?
• How do ontological and epistemological assumptions influence how we investigate political phenomena?
• What’s scientific about political science?
• Is there a bias in how science is conceptualised? How does it affect knowledge?

Compulsory Readings

Bhargava, Rohit. (2008) ‘Why Do We Need Political Theory’, in Bhargava, R. and Acharya, A. (eds.) Political Theory: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman, pp. 18‐37.

Tully, James. (2002). Political philosophy as a critical activity. Political theory, 30(4), 533-555.

Topic 4: What is political?

• What defines the space of the political?
• What are the implications of its definitions?
• If politics is an ‘essentially contested concept,’ by what criteria should decisions be made about which political issues to prioritize and how to address them?

Compulsory Readings

Graham, P., & Hoffman, J. (2022). Introduction to political theory. Routledge. – Chapter 1 – What is power?

Enloe, Cinthia. (2014). Chapter one. Gender Makes the World Go Round. In Bananas, Beaches and Bases (pp. 1-36). University of California Press.

Extra Reading

William Connolly, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts in Politics,’ pp. 9-44, in: The Terms of Political Discourse. Blackwell, 199

Topic 5: On power, authority and Ethics: Lecture I

• What defines the space of the political?
• What are the implications of its definitions?

Compulsory Readings

Dahl, R. A. (1957). The concept of power. Behavioral science, 2(3), 201-215.

Menon, Nivedita, 2008. “Power”. In Political Theory: An Introduction, eds. Rajeev Bhargav and Ashok Acharya. Pearson.

Topic 6: On power, authority and Ethics: Lecture II

• How does power relate to ethics?
• Is power inherently evil?

Compulsory Readings

Morgenthau, H. J. (1945). The evil of politics and the ethics of evil. Ethics, 56(1), 1-18.

Hutchings, K. (2001). International politics as ethical life. In Ethics and International Relations (pp. 30-55). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Topic 7: Order & Disorder

• What is (dis)order in international politics?
• How is (dis)order changed or maintained?
• What is the relationship between norms, institutions, and order?

Compulsory Readings

Acharya, Amitav. 2018. Constructing Global Order: Agency and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Foot, Rosemary. 2003. “Introduction.” In Order and Justice in International Relations, edited by

Extra Readings

Hurrell, Andrew. 2006. “Hegemony, Liberalism and Global Order: What Space for Would-Be Great Powers?” International Affairs 82 (1): 1-19

Helen Milner. “The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: a Critique.” Review of International Studies 17, no. 1 (1991): 67–85.

Stephen M. Walt. “Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power.” International Security 9, no. 4 (1985): 3–43

Topic 8: The State (Lecture I)

• What makes the state?
• What is “western” about it? And what approaches may challenge a western view of the state/politics?
• What does it mean that ‘states are performative’?
• What is the problem with non-state actor?

Das, s. (2008) ‘The State, in Bhargava, R. and Acharya, A. (eds.) Political Theory: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman.

Hall, S. (1984). The state in question. The idea of the modern state, 1-28.

Topic 9: The State (Lecture II)

• What makes the state?
• What is “western” about it? And what approaches may challenge a western view of the state/politics?
• What does it mean that ‘states are performative’?
• What is the problem with non-state actor?

Bertrand, B., & Claudia, R. (2000). Introduction. The Imported State: The Westernization of the Political Order.

Lang, Anthony F. "Authority and the Problem of Non-state Actors." Ethics, Authority, and War. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009. 47-72.

Weber, Cynthia. Performative states. Millennium, 1998, vol. 27, no 1, p. 77-95.

Topic 10: Sovereignty:

LIST TO BE CONFIRMED

Topic 11: Sovereignty: The Politics of the Exception

• Why is sovereignty the politics of exception?
• What implications does the exception bring?

Huysmans, J. (2008). The jargon of exception—on Schmitt, Agamben and the absence of political society. International political sociology, 2(2), 165-183.

Triandafyllidou, A. (2022). Spaces of Solidarity and Spaces of Exception: Migration and Membership During Pandemic Times. Migration and Pandemics, 3-21.

Kerem Nisancioglu. “Racial Sovereignty.” European Journal of International Relations (2019): 1–25.

Topic 12: Governmentality: The Politics of the Ordinary

• How can the study of the everyday contribute to the understanding of the political?
• Is the everyday controllable?
• What is biopower?

Holland, Jack and Ty Solomon. 2014. “Affect is What States Make of It: Articulating Everyday Experiences of 9/11,” Critical Studies on Security, 2(3), 262-277.

Banerjee, Sukanya; Angana Chatterji; Lubna Nazir Chaudry; Manali Desai; Saadia Toor; and Kamala Visweswaran. 2004. ‘Engendering Violence: Boundaries, Histories, and the Everyday,’ Cultural Dynamics, 16(2/3), pp. 125-139.

Masters, C., & Dauphinee, E. (Eds.). (2016). The Logics of Biopower and the War on Terror: Living, Dying, Surviving. Springer.

Topic 13: BARE LIFE AND RESISTANCE

Jenny Edkins and Veronique Pin-Fat, ‘Through the Wire: Relations of Power and Relations of Violence,’ Millennium, 34, 1, 2005, pp. 1-24.

Andreja Zevnik, ‘Sovereign-Less Subjects and the Possibility of Resistance,’ Millennium, 28: 83, 2009, pp. 83-106.

Evaluation and grading system

SEMINAR Schedule TO BE UPDATED

We expect you to come to class having done the readings.

Let me stress this again: I expect you to come to class having done the readings. Seminar participation IS part of the assessment (see below).

Some of the readings will challenge you, but they will all contribute to your understanding of politics through different perspectives. You will need to use the readings for your written assignments and the seminar sessions.

The seminars are highly interactive and based on students’ participation and engagement. They provide an opportunity to engage in lively conversations on the course topic at hand. These discussions are a central component of this class, allowing students to refine their understanding of required readings, to engage critically with the arguments they advance and the evidence they offer, and to develop potential essay topics. Seminar topics can be found below.

The purpose of seminars is group work. Each week you should read the required readings and come prepared to participate in a discussion of the question(s) for that tutorial. As a student it is your responsibility to be prepared and willing to express your views and to ask questions. In so doing, you should seek to present your points clearly, give justifications for your arguments, and avoid being polemical.

Assessment

Seminar Reflections and Participation (50%)

This course requires you to attend and actively participate in three seminars. Active participation is key to get the most out of the module and for you to develop your critical thinking about politics and contemporary political issues.

You should come to seminars having critically engaged with the assigned readings and eager to discuss them. All of this will count towards participation and attendance.

As part of the assessment, all students must submit a brief reflection on the readings for each tutorial. This means that by the end of the term, you will have submitted 3 reflection papers. These reflections should be around 1000-1500 words each and take the form of a critical argument or evaluation or posit questions provoked by the readings and any other intriguing material that you found in relation to the topic. If you are absent, you must submit your reflections via email on the day of your seminar. Failure to comply will result in the reflections marked as zero.

Final exam (50%)

Students will sit one three-hour exam which will be held at the end of the semester during the examination period (worth 50% of the total assessment). The exam will comprise three parts, with each question given equal weighting.