Collège Universitaire, Campus de Reims Spring semester 2015
Syllabus
Title:
Introduction to Political Science
Lecturer:
Caterina Froio, Post-doctoral fellow University Paris 2- Assas CERSA, Centre d'études et de recherches administratives et politiques https://cnrs.academia.edu/CaterinaFroio
[email protected]
Tutorial aim This conference aims first of all at helping students to gain a comprehensive understanding of the main themes presented in the lecture and the readings given by the principal lecturers, thus contributing to their grasp of the Political Science fundamentals. Second, the conference should provide students with both the methodological and conceptual tools necessary to successfully complete different types of oral and written assignments. Last but not least, the conference contains an important interactive dimension and will strongly encourage students to participate in class discussions. The course is divided into two large sections. The first section – “Systems and regimes” – will focus on the structural and institutional characteristics of politics and political competition. The second – “Actors and individuals” – will take a bottom-up approach to politics and show how it interacts with the structural features discussed in section one.
Preparation For each conference, students are expected to have gone through all assigned readings and to be prepared on the content of the previous lectures and tutorials. Students are therefore expected to read the literature and prepare it in a critical and analytical way. There are lectures by the instructor as well as student presentations focusing on a critique of the articles, and general class discussion over the main issues. The tutor will co-ordinate and direct the discussions together with the students that are assigned to give a presentation. All students that are not directly involved in the presentation should demonstrate that they have prepared 1
the class by formulating two or three questions or critical reflections on the readings and presentations, based on one’s interests and knowledge as well as on reports and events from the media. The core idea of the course is student participation.
Evaluation The conference counts as 2/3 of the overall grade (a final exam at the end of the semester represents the remaining 1/3). The conference grade consists of three types of evaluation: a mid-term exam (30%) an individual oral presentation (30%) and a written essay (30 %); a grade rewarding participation in class and compliance with homework counts for the remaining 10%. 1. The mid-term exam takes the same form as the final exam: students are required to answer to 1 out of the 2 essay questions included. More information shall be available at a later stage during the semester, but useful examples of questions (from past years’ exams) can be found on the Moodle page of the course by Emiliano Grossman. 2. The oral presentation is an individual exercise based on a topic students choose during the first tutorial, on the basis of the themes of each session. In each session there will be at least 2 oral presentations related to the topics of the class. The presentation should not exceed 10 minutes. Students must present and critically assess the most important arguments related to the topic of the presentation. Acquiring public speaking skills is a fundamental part of the assignment: presentations must not be read. 3. Oral presentations must be accompanied by a written essay to be circulated to the rest of the class at least 2 days before the class. The essay shall represent a written discussion of the topic of the oral presentation. In this way, students will show that they are able to grasp the most important arguments related to a topic and present them in a clearly structured way. Essays should be of about 1000-1500 words (excluding bibliography) and should: -
Include a research question and an interesting argument; Be clearly structured (Introduction, argument, conclusion); Provide an overview of the main approaches/authors/ studies on the topic; Include a bibliography listing the books/articles consulted for the essay;
Please consider that all students in the class should have a chance to read the essays before the session, hence being on time are extremely important: late submissions will not be graded. 4. Participation in class consists in formal and informal exercises. Informally, students are always expected to actively participate to the debate of each class, by asking questions and by trying to answer to, and comment on, the points raised during the presentations. Formally, the day before the class all students (excluded those making presentations) are expected to upload on the Google Drive folders of the tutorial one/two critical question on the required readings, and one per each written essay uploaded by their colleagues. Whenever possible, you are invited to make reference to other literature and readings of the course, and to the news and ongoing events which the students may know or consider relevant to discuss the topic.
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The questions should be reasoned and formulated in a comprehensive way, and could focus on aspects the students have found of particular interest, and/or that they have found difficult to understand; The questions will be used in the collective discussion of the themes of each session, and can focus on news events that are related to the themes of the session (current or past); implications and considerations that are inspired but that go beyond the literature; connections with other topics approached in the course, etc. Attendance and late arrivals Attendance is compulsory. All absences will have to be justified with the administration (medical certificate, RATP certificate…). Please consider that the tutor has no say in this. In accordance with the Sciences Po guidelines, if a student misses more than 2 conferences, he or she fails the course. Moreover, students must be on time. Repeated late arrivals will be considered as absences and taken into account in the participation mark.
Plagiarism Plagiarism (direct copying without citation of others’ thoughts, written or not) is a very serious issue and will not be tolerated. Science Po has an extremely severe policy in this respect. Note that specialized software will be used systematically to detect eventual cases of plagiarism in students’ assignments. Office hours Once per week, the tutor will be available to meet students and have individual discussions. The exact time and location will be communicated as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, do not hesitate to contact me via email. Calendar Session 1 – Introduction: politics and political science (30.01.2015) General presentation and organisation of the lecture, the election of a class representative, methodological guidelines, distribution of the presentations and the essays. Compulsory readings: - Skinner, Q., Machiavelli, Oxford, OUP, 1981, chapter 2. - Machiavelli, The Prince, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1988, Chapter 25. Additional readings: - Sartori, Giovanni, “What is ‘Politics’?”, Political Theory, vol. I, no. 1, 1973, pp. 5-26. Session 2 – System and regimes: the production of political orders (06.02.2015) Compulsory readings: - Francis Fukuyama, The origins of political order: from prehuman times to the French Revolution, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, chapter 5.
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Presentation 1: Does political order exclude violence? Presentation 2: The State: a necessary evil? References: - North, D.G, Wallis, J.J. & B.R. Weingast (2009), Violence and social orders, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press - Dryzek, J.S., Honig, B., Phillips, A. (eds.) (2006), The Oxford handbook of political theory, Oxford, OUP. - Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the commons, Cambridge, CUP. - Weber, M. (1964), The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, New York, Free Press. Translated and edited by Parsons T.
Session 3 – System and regimes: the state, communities and collective identities (13.02.2015) Compulsory readings: - Lord Acton, « Nationality », in Gopal Balakrishnan (ed.), Mapping the nation, London, Verso/New Left Review, 1996[1862]. - Mill, J.S., “Of Nationality, as connected with Representative Government”, chapter 16 of Considerations on Representative Government, 1861. - Smith, A., “Invention and Imagination”, Ch. 6 of Nationalism and Modernism, Routledge, NY, 1998. Presentation 1: The nation and Europe – old and new nationalisms Presentation 2: How does the state deal with identities? References: - Fredrik Barth (1969), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The social organization of culture difference, London, George Allen & Uwin. - Anderson, Benedict (2006), Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, London; New York: Verso. - Stein Rokkan, (1999) State formation, nation-building, and mass politics in Europe: the theory of Stein Rokkan: based on his collected works, Oxford University Press. - Mudde, Cas. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, chapter 7. - Charles Taylor, Amy Gutman (eds.) (1992), Multiculturalism and the "Politics of recognition", Princeton, Princenton University Press. - Starton, Nicolas. (2010), “Where to for the Radical Right in the European Parliament? The Rise and Fall of Transnational Political Cooperation,” Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 11:4, 429-449. - Halikiopoulou, Daphne, Kyriaki Nanou and Sofia Vasilopoulou. “The Paradox of Nationalism: The Common Denominator of Radical Right and Radical Left Euroscepticism”, European Journal of Political Research, 51:4 (2012), 504-539. - Van Dyke (1977), “The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political Theory”, World Politics, 29:3, pp. 343-369. - Rouhana, N, and Ghanem, A. (1998). "The crisis of minorities in ethnic states: The case of Palestinian citizens in Israel." International Journal of Middle East Studies, 30, pp. 321-346. 4
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Peled, Y. (1992), "Ethnic democracy and the legal construction of citizenship: Arab citizens of the Jewish state." American political science review, pp. 432-443.
Session 4 – System and regimes: democracy (20.02.2015) Compulsory readings: - Lijphart, A. (1999), Patterns of democracy; Yale University Press, chap. 2 & 3 Presentation 1: Can democracy be exported? Presentation 2: What defines democracy today, substance, procedure or polyarchy? References: - Beyme, K. von (2000) Parliamentary democracy, Basingstoke: MacMillan. - Dahl, R. (1971), Polyarchy, New Haven, Yale University Press. - Huntington, S. (1991), The third wave, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press. - Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of democracy, New Haven, Yale University Press. - O'Donnel, G. (1994), “Delegative democracy,” Journal of democracy, 5:1, 55-69. - Powell, B. (2000) Elections as instruments of democracy, New Haven, Yale University Press. - Schumpeter, J. (1942), Capitalism, socialism, and democracy, New York, Harper. - Schraeder, P. (2002), Exporting Democracy. Theoretic vs. Reality, Boulder Colorado, Lynne Rienner Publisher. - Barany, Z. and Moser, G. R. (2009), Is Democracy Exportable?, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Session 5 – System and regimes: government, delegation and decision-making (06.03.2015) Compulsory readings: - Tsebelis, G (2002), Veto players, Princeton University Press, chap. 3 (selection). Presentation 1: Can parliaments control public policies? Presentation 2: Why are political systems more or less responsive? References: - Urbinati, N. and Warren M. E. (2008), “The Concept of Representation in Contemporary Democratic Theory”, Annual Review of Political Science, June, DOI: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.053006.190533. - Susan K. Schmidt, “The European Commission's powers in shaping European policies,” in The changing European Commission, ed. Dionyssis G. Dimitrakopoulos (Manchester University Press, 2004), 105-120. - Soroka, Stuart and Chris Wlezien (2010), Degrees of democracy. Politics, public opinion and policy, New York, Cambridge University Press. - STRØM K., MÜLLER W.C., BERGMAN T. (dir.) (2003), Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies, Oxford, Oxford University Press. - Herbert Döring, Mark Hallerberg (ed.) (2004), Patterns of parliamentary behavior, Aldershot : Ashgate. - Thomas Saalfeld (2000), Members of parliament and governments in Western Europe: Agency relations and problems of oversight, European Journal of Political Research, 37, 353–376. 5
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Ulrich Sieberer (2011), “The Institutional Power of Western European Parliaments: A Multidimensional Analysis,” West European Politics, 34, 4, 731–754. Tsebelis, G. (2002), Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work, Princeton University Press. Baumgartner, Frank R. and Bryan Jones, The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Session 6 – System and regimes: authoritarian regimes and transitions (13.03.2015) Compulsory readings: - Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. Why Nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity and poverty. Crown, NY, 2012: 70-95; 428-443 Presentation 1: Why does pluralism persist under dictatorship? Presentation 2: How, when and why do revolutions (or coups) occur/fail to occur? Refereces: - Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick, Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2008). - O'DONNELL Guillermo, SCHMITTER Philippe C., and WHITEHEAD Laurence (ed.) Transitions from authoritarian rule : comparative perspectives, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press,1991. - Acemoglu D. & J.A. Robinson, 2006, Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy, Ch 7. - Gurr, T. (1970). Why Men Rebel, Princeton UP. - Humphreys and Weinstein (2008). “Who fights?", AJPS, 52:2,436-55. Skocpol, T. (1979). States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China, Cambridge UP. - Tullock 1971, “The paradox of revolution,” Public Choice, 11, pp. 89-99.
Session 7 – System and regimes: development and democracy (20.03.2015) Compulsory readings: - Bo Rothstein, “Creating Political Legitimacy: Electoral Democracy versus Quality of Government”, American Behavioral Scientist 2009 53: 311-330. - Olson, M., “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 87, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 567-576 Presentation 1: Does democracy require development or does development require democracy? Presentation 2: The future of the welfare state, from the retrenchment of US welfare to EU austerity.
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References: -
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Esping-Andersen G. (1990), The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton, Princeton University Press. Bramall, R. (2013), The Cultural Politics of Austerity, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan. Francis Fox Piven, (2000), “The politics of retrenchment: the US case,” in The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Walter Korpi and Joakim Palme (1998), The paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality: welfare state institutions, inequality, and poverty in the western countries", American sociological review, vol. 63, October, pp. 661-687. Crum, B. (2013), "Saving the Euro at the Cost of Democracy?." JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. Adam Przeworski (2000), Democracy and development: political institutions and well-being in the world, 1950-1990, Cambridge University Press. Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” The American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (Mars 1959): 69-105.
Session 8 – Actors and institutions: individuals, socialization and political culture (27.03.2015) Compulsory readings: - Inglehart, R.F. (2008), "Changing values among Western publics from 1970 to 2006", West European Politics, 31:1-2, 130-146. -
Ignazi, P. (1992), "The silent counter‐revolution." European Journal of Political Research, 22:1, pp. 3-34.
Presentation 1: What are the driving forces of political behaviour? From contextual to individual explanations Presentation 2: Political cultures in Europe and the World: a clash of civilizations? References: - Almond, Gabriel and Sidney Verba. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, Sage Publications, 1989, Ch. 1. - Putnam, Robert D. (1995) Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital, Journal of Democracy 6(1), pp. 65-78. - Inglehart, Ronald F. The Silent Revolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977, Ch. 1--6. - Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations, NY: Simon & Schuster. - Ignazi, P. (1996), "The crisis of parties and the rise of new political parties." Party Politics, 2.4, pp. 549-566. - Franklin, M., Thomas, N., Mackie, t. and Valen, H. (1992). Electoral change. ECPR Press. 7
Session 9 – Actors and institutions: political competition, parties and institutions (03.04.2015) Compulsory readings: - Downs, A., “The statics and dynamics of party ideologies”, chapter 8 of An Economic Theory of Democracy, Boston, Addison-Wesley, 1957. Presentation 1: What are the effects of electoral laws on the political system? Presentation 2: The extreme right in Europe. A threat to democracy? References: - Golder, M. (2005), "Democratic electoral systems around the world, 1946– 2000."Electoral Studies 24.1, pp. 103-121. - Lijphart, A. (1995), Electoral Systems and Party Systems, USA, Oxford University Press. - Blondel, J. «Party Systems and Patterns of Government in Western Democracies», Canadian Journal of Political Science, 1, 1968, pp. 180-203. - Duverger, M., Les partis politiques, Paris, Armand Colin, 1981. - Sartori, G., Parties and Party Systems: a Framework for Analysis, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976. - Gallagher, M. (1991). "Proportionality, disproportionality and electoral systems."Electoral studies, 10.1, pp. 33-51. - Gallagher, M. (1992), "Comparing proportional representation electoral systems: Quotas, thresholds, paradoxes and majorities." British Journal of Political Science, 22.4, pp. 469-496. - Gallagher, M., and Mitchell, P. (2005), Introduction to Electoral Systems, Oxford, Oxford University Press. - Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart, Electoral laws and their political consequences (Algora Publishing, 1986). (Introduction, and Chapter 1 by Riker) - Mair, Peter. The West European Party System, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, Ch. 1, 20, 22, 24. - Mudde, Cas. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Session 10 – Actors and institutions: political competition, voters (10.04.2015) Compulsory readings: - Dalton R. (2010), Ideology, partisanship, and democratic development, in LeDuc & al., Comparing democracies 3, Sage, 143-164. - Pennings, P. “Voters, Elections and Ideology in European Democracies”, in H. Keman Comparative Democratic Politics: A Guide to Contemporary Theory and Research, SAGE, 2002 Presentation 1: Modes of political participation and the decline of turnout 8
Presentation 2: Does class still explain how people vote?
References: - Franklin, M. (2001), "How structural factors cause turnout variations at European Parliament elections." European Union Politics, 2.3, pp. 309-328. - Blais, A., Gidengil, E. and Nevitte, N. (2004) "Where does turnout decline come from?" European Journal of Political Research 43.2, pp. 221-236. - Gray, M., and Caul, M. (2000), "Declining voter turnout in advanced industrial democracies, 1950 to 1997 the effects of declining group mobilization." Comparative political studies 33.9, pp. 1091-1122. - Franklin, M., Lyons, P. and Marsh, M. (2004). "Generational basis of turnout decline in established democracies." Acta Politica 39.2, pp.115-151. - Terry Nichols Clark, “The Breakdown of Class Politics” 34, no. 1-2 (2003): 17-32. - Geoffrey Evans, “The continued significance of class voting,” Annual Review of Political Science 3, no. 1 (6, 2000): 401-417. - Evans, J. (2004) Voters and voting, London, Sage. - Nonna Mayer, “What remains of class vote?,” in Politics in France and Europe, ed. Pascal Perrineau and Luc Rouban (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). - Dalton, R. & H-D. Klingemann (eds) (2008) Political behaviour, Oxford, OU. - Baiocchi, G. (2001), "The Porto Alegre Experiment and Deliberative Democratic Theory." Politics & Society, 29.0, pp. 43-72. - Koopmans, R. (1996), "New social movements and changes in political participation in Western Europe." West European Politics, 19.1, pp. 28-50.
Session 11 – Actors and institutions: political participation and collective action (17.04.2015) Compulsory readings: - Freeman, J., “The origins of the Women’s Liberation Movement”, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, no. 4, pp. 792-811, reprinted in Jeff Goodwin & James Jasper (eds.), The social movements reader, Oxford, Blackwell, 2003. Presentation 1: How do social movements emerge? Presentation 2: Transnational activism: from Global Justice to the Occupy movement
References: -
Kriesi, H., et al. (2002), "New social movements and political opportunities in Western Europe." European journal of political research 22.2, pp. 219-244. Della Porta, D., and Diani, M.. Social movements: An introduction. Wiley. com, 2009. Della Porta, D., Kriesi, H. and Rucht, D. (2009) Social Movements in a Globalizing world (second expanded edition). Palgrave Macmillan. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. and Mayer N., eds. (1996) Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings. Cambridge University Press.
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Diani, M., and McAdam, d. eds. (2003) Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action: Relational Approaches to Collective Action. Oxford University Press. Lijphart, Arend (1997), Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma, American Political Science Review 91 (1): 1-14. Tilly, Charles (2003): Inequality, democratization, and de-democratization. Donatella Della Porta, Massimiliano Andretta, Lorenzo Mosca, Herbert Reiter, Globalization from below: Transnational Activists and Protest Networks, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2006. Jackie G. Smith, Globalization and resistance: transnational dimensions of social movements, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, 2002. Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005. Ishkanian, A., Glasius, M., & Ali, I. S. (2013). Reclaiming democracy in the square? Interpreting the movements of 2011-12. Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. Leonidas Oikonomakis and Jérôme E. Roos, “The Crisis of Representation and the Resonance of the Real Democracy Movement from the Indignados to Occupy” http://media.roarmag.org/2013/02/Resonance-Real-Democracy-MovementIndignados-Occupy.pdf
Session 12 – Conclusion: democracy, government and governance in a globalized world (24.04.2015) Compulsory readings: - Kriesi, H-P., et al., 2008, West European politics in the age of globalization, chap. 1 Presentation 1: Euro-enthusiasts vs Eurosceptics. Globalists vs No-Global. Who is who, and who prevails? Presentation 2: Democracy in the EU, Deficit, Input or Output. Towards the United States of Europe? -
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References: Bartolini, Stefano, Restructuring Europe. Centre formation, system building and political structuring between the nation state and the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005. Hix, Simon. The Political System of the European Union, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, Ch. 1, 2, 3 and 13. Schmitter, Philippe C. How to Democratize the European Union…And Why Bother?, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, Ch. 1. Majone, Giandomenico, Dilemmas of European Integration. The Ambiguities and Pitfalls of Integration by Stealth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, Ch. 10. Stefano Bartolini and Simon Hix, “Politics: the Right or the Wrong Sort of Medicine for the EU?” Notre Europe Policy paper no. 19, 2006, http://www.notreeurope.eu/uploads/tx_publication/Policypaper19-en.pdf. Peter Mair, “Political Opposition and the European Union,” Government and Opposition, 2007, vol. 42, no. 1, 1-17.
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