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Course Criteria
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5.00 Credits
Practical Curricular Training Fall 2008, Spring 2009. One-half credit. An opportunity to receive credit for professional training related to the degree. Students are expected to engage in such training for at least five hours per week. Training should take the form of teaching, research, or other work relevant to the student's program of study. It may take place at institutions of higher learning, with governmental agencies, or at other sites as appropriate. Students meet regularly with an advisor and submit a written report at the end of the training. Grading is pass/fail. The following reading groups meet regularly each semester. Interested students should contact the instructor during the first week of the semester.
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3.00 Credits
Obama vs. McCain: The 2008 U.S. Election in Comparative Perspective Fall 2008. Three credits. David Plotke This course analyzes the 2008 election in the United States. Beyond its immediate importance, this election also provides a window to view major elements of contemporary politics that extend beyond 2008. We focus on the two main presidential campaigns in the United States, assessing them both as strategic efforts and as political and policy projects. We consider how the shape of government institutions and electoral rules influences the electoral process. We examine parties and other modes of political mobilization and education, including the media. And we ask how voters make their decisions about whether to vote and for whom. We attempt to explain the dynamics and later the outcome of the campaign, and how it resembles and differs from major elections in other countries. This course does not presume a prior graduate course in American politics, but does require a commitment to engaging the diverse materials that constitute a record of the campaign (speeches, media ads, public opinion polls, voting studies, interviews, and more). Bob Kerrey, President of the New School, will participate in several sessions.
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3.00 Credits
Theories of Tyranny Fall 2008. Three credits. Andreas Kalyvas The very meaning of the term tyranny remains central to political theory and crucial to democratic discourse. However, it has been construed differently at various historical moments by distinct traditions and ideologies. This course closely examines the concept pf tyranny by focusing on its origins and development in Ancient Greek and Roman political thought. It traces its etymological appearance and historical diffusion in archaic times to its theoretical elaboration as a unique form of government in the classical age. As tyranny gradually became an object of knowledge, it generated different theories of its rise, perpetuation, and decline. Particular attention is given to the normative relationship among power, law, and justice and the recourse to legitimate violence against arbitrariness and illegal force. The course follows, on the one hand, the philosophical transmutation of tyranny into a form of degeneration of the human soul that seeks absolute freedom and, on the other, the poetic elucidation of the tragic consequences of the transgressive character of a political power that does not recognize any control. This hubris of tyranny is also examined historically in relation to the imperial ambition of perpetual expansion and boundless conquest. Is democracy or the republic antithetical to Empire What is the relation between domestic political autonomy and world tyranny Finally, the course looks into attempts to educate the tyrant in order to comparatively scrutinize the similarities and differences between tyranny and two other ancient systems of absolute power, monarchy and dictatorship.
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3.00 Credits
Machiavelli Spring 2009. Three credits. Ayse Banu Bargu This course examines Machiavelli's political thought and its relevance for politics today. It interrogates Machiavelli's ideas around key concerns including the means-ends relation, the meaning of the political and its articulation to the theological, the role of conflict and contradiction, the question of the event, and the problem of beginnings. The course also studies how Machiavelli has been read and recurrently indicted, praised, appropriated, or evoked from highly divergent theoretical and political standpoints. It evaluates Machiavelli's continuing significance for different theoretical problematics, such as civic humanism, democracy, sovereignty, political agency, history, revolutionary transformation, and gender politics. The course focuses on Machiavelli's major works, such as The Prince, the Discourses on Livy, History of Florence, and Art of War, but his personal correspondence and other writings (such as Life of Castruccio Castracani, Clizia, and Mandragola) are also considered. The course surveys the various reactions to Machiavelli, with particular emphasis on contemporary political thought. Authors include Rousseau, Frederick of Prussia, Hegel, Gramsci, Strauss, Althusser, Foucault, Arendt, Pocock, Pitkin, Lefort, Mansfield, and Abensour.
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3.00 Credits
Political Legitimacy Spring 2009. Three credits. Pierre Rosanvallon In democracy, the legitimacy of government officials is founded on election. The nature of democratic power is therefore naturally grounded in its origin, or its conditions of establishment. In spite of this general rule, politicians and elected officials are consistently accused of partisan politicking and compromising the general interest. Out of this tension has emerged a new interest in other non-electoral democratic institutions and procedures for establishing legitimacy. The course will be dedicated to tracing the history of these non-electoral foundations of the general will from the nineteenth century to its contemporary developments. Two areas will be treated primarily. First, we will explore the establishment of "Institutions of Generality" in democratic regimes-independent authoritieand constitutional court as elements of an "indirect democracy." We willthen discuss the political qualities of government officials which produce legitimacy in the eyes of citizens.
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3.00 Credits
Iran in Revolution: 1800-Present Fall 2008. Three credits. Neguin Yavari By the time the Qajar dynasty established itself in Iran in 1779, Shi'ism had already established its religious hegemony over Iran and the 18th and 19th centuries saw further evidence of its consolidation and institutionalization. How does the religious architecture of Shi'ism help explain the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 and the success of the Islamic revolution in 1979 in the absence of a strong Islamic movement And why did Iranians, clerical and lay, and in the heyday of colonialism, turn to a Western-inspired ideology in the early decades of the twentieth century, and then turn completely against Westernization some seventy years later This course studies social change in Iran during the past two centuries, focusing on the interaction of political thought with religious authority and cultural transformation, to suggest that the Islamic revolution of 1979 is better explained in the lexicon of revolutionary transformation than in that of religious resurgence or a revival of the past. Readings will include Bayat, Bulliet, Goldstone, Khomeini, Moaddel, Mottahedeh, Owen and Skocpol. Cross-listed as GHIS 5119, and as LHIS 4514.
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3.00 Credits
Readings on the Right Fall 2008. Three credits. Julia Ott The class offers a workshop in historical research and writing, with an emphasis on the evolution of conservative thought and politics in the United States. We will trace continuity and change in the meaning of the "conservative" label and in the nature of the groups that identify,or are identified with, conservatism. Students will encounter a range of conservative thinkers, evaluate historians' analyses of conservative movements, and produce an original research paper. This course fulfils the qualitative methods requirement for an MA in political science. Cross-listed as GHIS 5122, and as LHIS 4506.
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3.00 Credits
The Middle East: Paradoxes of Modernity & Democracy Spring 2009. Three credits. John VanderLippe In the modern era, the Middle East has been shaped by three great forces: Western domination; expansion of modern states and militaries; and popular demands for sovereignty, autonomy, inclusion, and justice. State-sponsored reform movements, ranging from the Ottoman Tanzimat (Reorganization) to Kemalism, Nasserism and Ba'thism, to Islamism, have responded to exogenous and indigenous pressures with attempts to modernize political, economic, and cultural institutions. But herein lays the paradox of modernity and democracy: statist reform movements have produced powerful bureaucracies and large militaries, but have failed to overcome economic stagnation or lead to democratic, egalitarian, just, and free societies, thus calling into question assumptions that modernity and democracy are intrinsically linked. Beginning with an examination of Western and Muslim writers' views on state and society, this course explores historical relations between the Middle East and West; development of modern states and militaries in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq; and intellectual and popular resistance movements, to explore answers to the question: Is democracy possible in the 21st century Middle East Cross-listed as GHIS 5124.
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3.00 Credits
Carl Schmitt: Theories of Dictatorship and Constitution Fall 2008. Three credits. Andrew Arato The seminar will involve an intensive reading and analysis of Schmitt's Constitutional Theory, published in 2008 in English. In particular, we will examine the link between the idea of sovereign dictatorship to his conception of constituent power. Registered students (auditors will be permitted if they come to all sessions) will be asked to prepare in-class presentations, and a final paper on the relationship of one or two of the following to constitutional theory: 1. The classical doctrines of either Machiavelli, Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, Sieyes, Condorcet, Madison, or Jefferson 2. The contemporary works of Jellinek, Carre de Malberg, Hauriou, Heller, or Kelsen 3. Schmitt's own works: Roman Catholicism and Political Form, Die Diktatur ( available in Spanish, French, and Italian translations), Political Theology, Concept of the Political, Legality or Legitimacy, or The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy 4. Theorists influenced by Schmitt: Arendt, Ackerman, Mouffe, Agamben, Negri, Derrida, or Lindahl 5. Schmitt's American interpreters: Schwab, Bendersky, Kennedy, Scheuerman, Kalyvas et.al. The class schedule is organized according to student presentations, with the first five sessions focusing on the book Die Diktatur ( that will be made available through four languages and secondary treatments). Crosslisted with Sociology.
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3.00 Credits
Borders, Migrants, and States Spring 2009. Three credits. Alexandra Delano How do states define their interests and responsibilities regarding the management of migration, border controls, or relationships with their diaspora How do migration policies impact population flows and migrants' political, economic, and civic engagements in the host state and homeland Based on an interdisciplinary perspective, this course examines the domestic, transnational, and international factors that influence states' migration and border policies and their effects. The course focuses on the U.S.-Mexico case as the basis for discussions on state-diaspora relations, border control policies, the impact of migration policies on immigrants and their transnational activities, and the challenges of immigrant integration and migration as a foreign policy issue.
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