|
CRN |
14109 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 104 |
||
|
Title |
International
Relations |
||
|
Professor |
James Ketterer |
||
|
Schedule |
Wed Fr 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 303 |
||
Cross-listed:
Human Rights
The course introduces basic concepts of International
Relations as a field of study. It is
organized around the question: how is world order maintained? Projects to create world order are
necessarily fraught with tension and conflict.
The course will examine the role of military power, alliance systems,
international organizations, and international law. The rules and institutions that govern global cooperation in
areas such as trade, economic development, environmental policy, human rights
or health-care will be among our concerns.
Are we seeing the emergence of a new world order? Would it be different from the world order
that prevailed during the second half of the 20th century? What are the consequences of civil
conflicts, state failure, and international terrorism for world order? What are the implications of the Bush
administration’s new national security posture of pre-emptive action against
hostile states? The goal of the course
will be to learn to think theoretically about “current events.”
|
CRN |
14398 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 105 |
||
|
Title |
Introduction
to Comparative Government |
||
|
Professor |
Jonathan Becker |
||
|
Schedule |
Mon Wed 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm ASP 302 |
||
This course is an introduction to the study of comparative
government. Political systems of selected foreign societies are examined in
order to illustrate major types, including democratic and authoritarian, mature
and developing, ‘Western’ and
non-‘Western’. The course examines patterns of similarity and differences in
the ways that political life and governmental action are structured, including
formal institutions of government, such as parliaments and bureaucracies;
political parties and other forms of group life; and political beliefs, values,
and ideologies. Case studies will include the United States, United Kingdom,
Russia, Brazil and Zimbabwe. This
course is required for all political studies majors.
|
CRN |
14112 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 153 |
||
|
Title |
Latin
American Politics and Society |
||
|
Professor |
Omar Encarnacion |
||
|
Schedule |
Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 202 |
||
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 Peru. 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.
|
CRN |
14216 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS / HR 229 |
||
|
Title |
Judgements,
Rights, Dissent |
||
|
Professor |
Daniel Karpowitz |
||
|
Schedule |
Wed Fr 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 308 |
||
Cross-listed:
American Studies, Human Rights
This course introduces a novel approach to some
basic questions about legal judgement, rights, and constitutionalism. Students will
learn some key legal terms and doctrines, but the ultimate aim of the course is
to enrich students’ ways of thinking about texts and to develop their interest
in the relationship between politics and aesthetics. Three different moments in
American legal history provide case-studies, each one explores a fundamental
experience with the discourse of rights: the antebellum crisis surrounding
abolition and the Fugitive Slave Laws; the conundrum of the ‘lawful’ state
crimes first conceptualized as genocide in the 1950’s; and the recent U.S.
Supreme Court controversy over the Victim Rights Movement. A final section of
the course culminates in a study of the peculiar American practice of
institutionalized dissent, and its significance for thinking about how we manage
conflicts of rights, power, and interpretation. Those so inclined will be able
to think about contemporary human rights issues in light of material found in
American law and literature. Students must juxtapose radically different sorts
of texts in order to explore the underlying political interests that unite
them. Members of the class will practice intensive reading of Constitutional
case law, legal philosophy, a political science monograph, actual trial
transcripts, and some of the finest pieces of American legal fiction. Although
the readings and discussions are intensive, the diversity of materials and
subjects are intended to appeal to a wide range of students.
|
CRN |
14134 |
Distribution |
A/C |
|
Course
No. |
SOC / PS 229 |
||
|
Title |
What’s
Left? What’s Right? The Rise and Fall of the Modern
Ideological Spectrum. |
||
|
Professor |
David Kettler |
||
|
Schedule |
Mon Wed 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 107 |
||
Sociology and Political Studies come together in
the study of ideologies. Do classifications
of Left and Right really help us to classify conflicting outlooks on
globalization or other aspects of the North-South divide, for example? What
about political teachings associated with one or another kind of intense
religious commitment? Where/how does
“identity politics” fit in the familiar scheme? The main contents of this
course will be a historically-grounded account of the ideological spectrum from
left to right, as it dominated both political discourse and sociological
analysis in the twentieth century.
Beginning with the emergence of political ideology as a distinctive
cultural-political form, primarily in the “liberalism” of the
anti-authoritarian political parties symbolized by the European revolutionary
dates of 1789, 1830, and 1848, as well as in their “conservative”
counter-formations, the study will take up as well several varieties of
socialism, nationalism, progressivism, and radical alternatives further to the
“left” and “right” of the ideological field.
This historical and analytical overview will be followed by the question
whether the twentieth-century picture of the ideological field still applies as
we move into the current epoch.
|
CRN |
14132 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 240 |
||
|
Title |
United
States - East Asian Relations |
||
|
Professor |
Nara Dillon |
||
|
Schedule |
Tu Th 10:00 am - 11:20 am LC 206 |
||
Cross-listed: American Studies, Asian Studies
This course provides an overview of foreign relations
between the United States and the nations of East Asia, starting with their
historical evolution and ending with a wide-ranging look at the region in the
current post-Cold War era. We will begin our historical survey with the
imperialism of the 19th and 230th centuries, turn to the
origins and revolutionary consequences of WWII, and then trace the contours of
the Cold War in the region. The Korean War, Vietnam War, and normalization of
relations between the U.S. and China will be highlighted. In the last section
of the course, we will turn to contemporary issues and problems in East
Asian-U.S. relations, such as trade, the globalization of popular culture, the
status of Tibet, and the current crisis in North Korea.
|
CRN |
14100 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 260 |
||
|
Title |
Environmental
Politics in the United States |
||
|
Professor |
Mark Lindeman |
||
|
Schedule |
Tu Fr 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN
202 |
||
Cross-listed: American Studies, Environmental Studies
Environmental politics involve many crucial themes
in American politics: How does government regulation work and fail to work? How
do competing interests and values shape policy outcomes? How do federal, state,
and local governments interact? How do policymakers grapple with (or evade)
complex technical issues? Why is political powerlessness hazardous to one's
health? What role does the United States play in international politics, and
why? What do the American people really value, and what do they really understand?
How do social movements and activists try to change "the system"? We
will consider major issues in American environmental politics, including toxic
waste and environmental justice, climate change and energy policy, wilderness
conservation, endangered species protection, and others.
|
CRN |
14074 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 295 |
||
|
Title |
Dreams
of Perfectibilty II: The Quest for Hegemony from FDR to Bush II |
||
|
Professor |
James Chace |
||
|
Schedule |
Mon Wed 11:00 am - 12:20 pm ASP 302 |
||
Cross-listed: American Studies
Immediately after the Second World War, a clash of
ideologies developed into a Cold War between the two victors, the United States
and Soviet Russia. To what extent was this
a moral struggle and to what degree, a classic conflict of great powers? This course will analyze the direction of
American foreign policy during an era that has been characterized as a pax americana. It will also make use of new material dealing with the Soviet
approach to the postwar world by studying excerpts from recently released
Soviet archives. The second half of the twentieth century also traces a
trajectory from American predominance to American decline, and then, with the
collapse of the Soviet Union, to American hegemony. The end of the Cold War marked the end of the bipolar world and
the emergence of the United States as megapower. The question now is, will the twenty-first century be the
American Century? Open to First Year students.
|
CRN |
14457 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 320 |
||
|
Title |
The
Spread of Democracy |
||
|
Professor |
Omar Encarnacion |
||
|
Schedule |
Tu 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 306 |
||
Cross-listed:
Human Rights, LAIS
PIE
Core Course
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.
|
CRN |
14073 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 322 |
||
|
Title |
American
Age: US Power and Purpose in the Twenty-First Century |
||
|
Professor |
James Chace |
||
|
Schedule |
Tu 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 309 |
||
Cross-listed: American Studies, Human Rights
With the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe
in 1989, the bipolar world that endured for almost five decades came to an end.
This has produced an unexpected result in the international order: the end of
superpower rivalry. The United States is thus deprived of a role that provided
it with its national mission throughout the years of the Cold War. At the same
time, its allies and antagonists seek to curb the hegemonic ambitions of the
new American imperium. Isolated, resented and envied, the United States finds
itself compelled to reconsider not only what it must do but, in a significant
respect, what it is and what it stands for. There is a new global agenda for
America, whose power and predominance has never been greater, and in which the
search for invulnerability takes place in a world torn by disorder and
conflict. This new American agenda will be debated and defined by a group of
upper-level students.
|
CRN |
14131 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 329 |
||
|
Title |
Popular
Protest in the Modern World |
||
|
Professor |
Nara Dillon |
||
|
Schedule |
Mon 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 304 |
||
Cross-listed: Human Rights
What moves people to take to the streets to protest
injustice? Why do people risk their
lives for political change? Under what
conditions are these kinds of political actions effective? This research
seminar aims to give students command over the major social science theories
about protest movements, social movements, rebellions, and revolutions. After an overview of the historical
development of this school of social science theory, students will read a range
of the leading theoretical approaches employed by scholars today, including
moral economy, rational choice, popular culture, and social movement theory,
among others. These theoretical
readings will be matched with empirical case studies of protest movements. This semester our case studies will focus
on transnational protest movements such as the anti-Communist movements of
1989, anti-globalization protests, as well as movements for human rights and
the environment.
|
CRN |
14110 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 346 |
||
|
Title |
Democrats, Theocrats, and Tyrants: Seminar
on Middle East Politics
|
||
|
Professor |
James Ketterer |
||
|
Schedule |
Wed 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 304 |
||
Cross-listed: Human Rights, Jewish Studies
This seminar is designed to give students an overview
of approaches to the study of Middle Eastern politics, a background in selected
salient issues, and a general knowledge of significant political events in the
region. The course material covers a variety of topics in the Arab World,
including the Mashreq (Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, etc.) and the Maghreb
(North Africa). The course also focuses on the non-Arab Middle Eastern
countries of Israel and Iran - and to a lesser extent Turkey. Within that context, the course examines
issues central to both the study of the region and the mastery of key concepts
in comparative politics. These include
the role of Islam in Middle Eastern politics, chances for and obstacles to
democratization, terrorism, the development of institutions, the ways and means
of dictatorships, and revolution. Readings will include Ajami’s Dream Palace of the Arabs, Munson’s Islam and Revolution in the Middle East,
Esposito’s Islam and Democracy, Political
Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World (by Brynen, et. al.), Makiya’s Republic of Fear, Baaklini’s,
Legislative Politics in the Arab World, and The Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin. We will also watch some films including, The Battle of Algiers, Lawrence of Arabia,
and Wedding in Galilee.
|
CRN |
14101 |
Distribution |
C |
|
Course
No. |
PS 371 |
||
|
Title |
Public
Policy Seminar |
||
|
Professor |
Mark Lindeman |
||
|
Schedule |
Th 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 306 |
||
Cross-listed: American Studies
Public policy can be loosely defined as what governments
“do about” various issues: for instance, by making laws and regulations, and by
allocating funds for specific programs.
Some public policy analysis focuses on understanding the policymaking
process – how a wide range of actors and conditions influence the policymaking
agenda and policy outcomes. Other
public policy analysis focuses instead on evaluating the social effects of
public policy, both intended and unintended, and considering how policy can be designed
to achieve desired social outcomes. If
public policy matters, then we need to consider both how it is made and what it
does or can do. This seminar begins
with an overview of policymaking in the United States through broad themes such
as policy entrepreneurship, agenda-setting, federalism, and cost-benefit
analysis. It goes on to examine
selected aspects of U.S. social welfare policy with an eye to understanding the
sources and effects of past and present policy, as well as the prospects for
future policy initiatives. Students
will write research papers examining specific issues in public policy (not
necessarily limited to the United States).