Course no. PS 112
Title Introduction to American Government
Professor Jonathan Kahn
Schedule Tue Th 2:50 pm-4:10 pm Olin 202
Distrib. C
CRN 93194

Cross-listed: American Studies

This course is an introduction to the study of the government of the United States. Its framework is freedom and power and the tensions between democracy and the demands of effective governance in modern society. All governments combine coercion and legitimacy. In a stable and legitimate system, coercion is hardly noticed. Government comes to be seen as a source of benefits. The purpose of the course is to look behind institutions, practices, and benefits to appreciate how, for what, and for whom we are governed.



Course no. PS 153
Title The Politics of Latin American Development
Professor Omar Encarnacion
Schedule Tue Th 3:40 pm-5:10 pm Olin 203
Distrib. C
CRN 93195

Cross-listed: LAIS

This course examines political life in Latin America in the postcolonial period. The course covers the entire region but emphasizes the most representative countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela. The overarching purpose of the course is to understand change and continuity in this region. We will endeavor to accomplish this by emphasizing both the historical development of institutions and political actors in Latin America (e.g. the state, capital, labor, the church, the military) as well as the variety of theoretical frameworks that scholars have constructed to understand the dynamics of political development throughout the region (e.g. modernization, dependencia, and political culture). Among the major themes covered in the course are the legacies of European colonialism, state building, revolution, corporatism and populism, military rule, and redemocratization. Open to all students.



Course no. PS 212
Title The American Welfare State in Comparative Perspective
Professor Oren Levin-Waldman
Schedule Th 3:30 pm-6:00 pm Olin 303
Distrib. C
CRN 93199

The course will examine the theories, historical development, politics, policies and economics of the welfare state. Although the principal focus will be on the United States, some time will be spent on the welfare state as it has developed in Europe, with perhaps some attention paid to the developing welfare states in developing nations. A course on the welfare state, however, should not be confused with a course on welfare policy as it has been narrowly defined in the U.S., i.e. public assistance. Rather the welfare state is more encompassing. Though it would include public assistance to be sure, it would also look at other programs comprising the welfare state such as employment policies, education, child care, health care and so on. One guiding question might be why countries like Germany and France have been able to develop more comprehensive programs whereas the U.S. has only been able to adopt programs in response to crises. This, of course, is a question of political culture which will be addressed.



Course no. PS 262
Title Environment, Law and Culture
Professor Jonathan Kahn
Schedule Tue Th 10:30 am-11:50 am Olin 202
Distrib. A/C
CRN 93200

Cross-listed: American Studies, CRES, MES

How, why, and to what extent should the American legal system protect the natural environment? If it protects the natural environment, should it also protect aspects of the human-made environment? This course will begin by exploring the logic of preservation underlying the laws protecting endangered species, wilderness, and national parks. We will move beyond environmental law itself to consider such questions as what is wilderness, what makes a natural wonder different from a cultural or human-made wonder, and what makes either or both deserving of preservation. To address these questions we will compare the logic of environmental preservation laws with laws protecting historic buildings and historic artifacts such as the Elgin Marbles. Finally, we will consider whether distinct cultural communities can or should be accorded legal protection on a par with natural communities.



Course no. PS 294
Title The Great European Civil War
Professor James Chace
Schedule Mon 1:20 pm-3:20 pm Olin 205
Distrib. C
CRN 93201

The 1919 Versailles conference was perhaps the most dramatic example of a crisis in alliance politics with far-ranging and disastrous effects on the international system. In the interwar period monetary and trade crises marked the United States's relations with its allies Great Britain and France. The collapse of the international economic system and its replacement by a trade and monetary system designed by the United States after World War II gave the United States an implicit veto over the behavior of its principal allies during the Cold War. Much of the postwar period, however, was marked by endemic crises in U.S.-European relations, beginning with the U.S. loan to Britain in 1946 and including the rearmament of Germany, the debacle at Suez, the oil crises of the 1970s, the collapse of the dollar, the continuing debate on military strategy as the Atlantic Alliance confronted the Warsaw Pact, and the final collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1990. No prerequisites, but some knowledge of twentieth-century European and American politics would be helpful.



Course no. PS 312
Title Citizenship and Political Participation in Twentieth-Century America
Professor Jonathan Kahn
Schedule Mon 3:30 pm-5:30 pm Olin 308
Distrib. C
CRN 93202

Cross-listed: American Studies

Exploring the development of political culture from the turn of the century to the present, this course will examine problems of political engagement and alienation in the United States. What has it meant to be a public citizen in today's world? From voting to lobbying to civil disobedience to rioting, we will examine what makes an action political and why people at different moments in history choose (or reject) one or another form of political action to achieve public ends. We will consider such questions as, How and why do people engage in political action to affect public life? Why do people vote or fail to vote? How has the meaning of voting changed during this century? What are the drawbacks and merits of different forms of political participation? What forces constrain or facilitate different types of broad-based popular political action? Prerequisite: college-level background in American politics or permission of the instructor.



Course no. PS 313
Title Politics of New Democracies
Professor Omar Encarnacion
Schedule Wed 1:20 pm-3:20 pm Olin 308
Distrib. C
CRN 93203

Since the mid-1970s, over forty nations in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia have exited authoritarian rule and inaugurated democratic government, occasioning a global democratic revolution of unprecedented proportions. The rise of open and competitive political systems in parts of the world once seemingly condemned to dictatorship raises at least two critical questions to students of political development in general and democracy in particular. What accounts for the triumphant rise of democracy at the end of the twentieth century? And what are the prospects for democratic consolidation among fledgling democracies? These questions provide the anchor for this seminar on the politics of democratization. They frame a wide range of issues and theoretical questions in the study of the politics of democratization such as whether democracy is the outcome of material prosperity or skillful political actors, which kinds of political institutions and arrangements are best suited to a new democracy, how democratizing societies settle the legacies of repression of the retreating authoritarian regime, and the links between democratization and political violence. The cases covered by the seminar include Spain, Argentina, Russia and South Africa. Open to students with a background in the social sciences.



Course no. PS 314
Title Politics of Globalization
Professor Sanjib Baruah
Schedule Fri 1:20 pm-3:20 pm Olin 303
Distrib. C
CRN 93204

Economic globalization along with new telecommunications and computer networks have in recent years weakened the authority of states over their territories. While territorial states are alive and well, the notion of state sovereignty and the ability of governments to influence a nation's economy, culture and society has eroded. This decline may not be as apparent in the case of powerful states such as the United States. But among less powerful states many, for instance, have to make economic policy with an eye to how the bond-rating agency Moody's rates its bonds and the International Monetary Fund assesses the health of its economy. Ministries of culture are more worried than ever about the penetration of their airwaves by global media networks. Powerful states have not escaped this trend of declining authority. They may, for instance, welcome the movement of capital that globalization entails but not the movement of people. Yet traditional tools of immigration control are no longer adequate to control the transnational movement of people in the age of globalization. The course will examine the issues of global governance in this age of the declining authority of the territorial state. We will look at what is new about globalization--the transnational flow of ideas, images, finance and people in our times--, and the authorities of "global governance" such as the International Monetary Fund and global credit agencies. If a "system" of global governance is emerging, is there much in the way of an opposition that could make this "system" more accountable? We will look at the potential of activist global organizations--e.g. human rights organizations and environmental organizations--to play an oppositional role.



Course no. PS 336
Title Crisis of the Rule of Law?
Professor David Kettler
Schedule Mon 6:30 pm-9:30 pm Olin 201
Distrib. C
CRN 93205

A historic feature of modern states, and especially of constitutional democracies, has been the central place of "Rule of Law" among their legitimating political symbols. Neoliberal critics of the postwar welfare states consider the law of the welfare state inconsistent with the "rule of law" and they cast their attack against government provisions for social justice as a defense of the historic doctrine. In western Europe and North America, they have made major gains in law and public policy since 1980, and they dominate the field in post-Communist states. Critics in the leftist tradition of exposing ideology in the law challenge the claims of "rule of law" proponents to be doing more than defending a certain constellation of (oppressive) interests embedded in the legal system. Legal politologists and other reformers experiment with ways of salvaging ethical values of "rule of law" while adapting law to social justice tasks unanticipated by classical liberals. This course will examine the issues in these debates, moving beyond U.S. writers. After a joint overview, the debates will be concretized by reference to three issue areas: (1) self-organization of labor, (2) the treatment of women in family law, and (3) the "political justice" appropriate to tyrannical rulers. Students will prepare seminar reports/research papers on case studies in one of these three areas.



Course no. PS 355
Title Power Politics
Professor James Chace
Schedule Tue 10:30 am-12:30 pm Olin 309
Distrib. C
CRN 93206

An Upper College seminar. The realist tradition in international relations has long been central to the method by which rulers and policymakers deal with the foreign policy of the state. This seminar will concentrate on analyzing the classic works of the so-called realist tradition. Readings will include selections from Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hume, Lorenzo de Medici, Harold Nicolson, Hajo Holborn, Henry Kissinger, Hamilton and Madison, E. H. Carr, George Kennan, Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hans Morgenthau. We will combine our analysis of theory with a historical study of power politics from 1815 to 1940. In this context, we will examine the exercise of the balance of power in Europe and the Wilsonian tradition in twentieth-century America.