This course will examine the political underpinnings of inequality in American cities, with particular attention to the racialization of inequality. The course is based on the literature of multidisciplinary studies by leading scholars in the field, drawing from anthropology, gender studies, history, political science, religious studies, postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, and sociology. Also explored will be political imprisonment in the United States. By the end of the term, students should have an enhanced understanding of the major dilemmas related to the region's place in the international system. This course examines the complex political processes that led successive American presidents to get involved in a conflict that all of them desperately wanted to avoid. How is political power generated and exercised? Students will be asked to analyze and evaluate the strategic choices we examine, as well as the process by which they were reached. She narrowly escaped imprisonment by the Gestapo and internment in a refugee camp in Vichy France before fleeing to New York. Those who proclaimed "liberty, egality, fraternity" for themselves violently denied them to others. Or whether it is economic crises which make the movement to democracy possible. Among the topics we will discuss are the incentives, norms, and practices of news-making organizations; how politicians try to sway the public during campaigns; how the media covers campaigns; and how the media influences Americans' racial attitudes. Yet the visual dimensions of political life are at best peripheral topics in contemporary political science and political theory. Readings are drawn from Supreme Court opinions, presidential addresses, congressional debates and statutes, political party platforms, key tracts of American political thought, and secondary scholarship on constitutional development. Individual countries have always sought to change others, and following wars, countries have often collectively enforced peace terms. We will examine both the international and domestic context of the war, as well as pay close attention to both South and North Vietnamese perspectives on the war. This course identifies the political conditions under which welfare states developed in the twentieth century, and examines how they have responded to globalization, immigration, digital transformation, and other contemporary challenges. Who decides? Begun as an experiment over 200 years ago, the United States has grown into a polity that is simultaneously praised and condemned, critiqued and mythologized, modeled by others and remodeled itself. This course explores the politics and practices that arise from UNCLOS. Ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity is offset by common cultural traditions and practices that serve to unite the people of the Indian Subcontinent. We will explore the causes of the rise of nationalism and far-right populism in the US and Europe, discuss their relations with liberal democracy, conservativism, and authoritarian politics to study varieties of far-right populism and nationalism not only within the nominal far-right but all political parties in Western democracies. The implications for political polarization, economic growth, social insurance programs, public health, military defense, even national survival are grim. George Orwell: Capitalism, Socialism and Totalitarianism. What does it mean for a government to be truly sovereign? To answer these questions, we will examine immigration from a multidisciplinary lens, but with special attention to immigration politics and policy. This revolution was the most successful revolt of the enslaved in recorded history. (Note that in 2023 this course will also fulfill the senior seminar requirement for STS) [more], Debates over American national identity, or what it means to be an American, have intensified in recent years, with a resurgent white Christian nationalism challenging progressive aspirations for a multiracial, environmentally sustainable, liberal democracy. Can wars occur "by accident"? Why has historical commemoration gotten so contentious--or has it always been contentious? out that most Americans know very little about politics and lack coherent political views, are easily manipulated by media and campaigns, and are frequently ignored by public officials anyway. To how we want American politics to work? Topics include the founding of the American system and the primary documents (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers), the primary institutions of national government then and now (Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court), and the politics of policy-making in the United States. We will analyze texts and audio-visual works on the political economy of late colonial Jamaica, core Rastafari thinking, political theology, the role of reggae music, the notion of agency, and the influence of Rastafari on global politics. [more], With the permission of the department, open to those senior Political Science majors who are not candidates for honors, yet who wish to complete their degree requirements by doing research--rather than taking the Senior Seminar--in their subfield of specialization. Does the state and its policies make the nation, as many scholars claim? Rather than treating science as a monolith, we will endeavor to understand the implications of various sciences--as practiced and envisioned in various, historically specific situations--for gender and politics. What does it mean for a government to be truly sovereign? Who gains and loses from the idea that people have human rights? The course will begin by reading about both the general theoretical issues raised by conflicts in these "divided societies" and various responses to them. We will analyze texts and audio-visual works on the political economy of late colonial Jamaica, core Rastafari thinking, political theology, the role of reggae music, the notion of agency, and the influence of Rastafari on global politics. IGOs, whose members are sovereign states, range from the Nordic Association for Reindeer Research to NATO and the UN; INGOs, whose members are private groups and individuals, include the International Seaweed Association as well as Doctors Without Borders and Human Rights Watch. We will also explore the controversies and criticisms of his work from both the right and the left because of his political stance on issues ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to humanitarian intervention to free speech. Tutorial topics include: sovereignty and the Platt Amendment; culture and politics; race and national identity; policies on gender and sexual identity; the institutions of "popular power"; the post-Soviet "Special Period"; the evolution of the Cuban exile community in the US; and the fraught agenda of reform and generational transition. We will also explore the controversies and criticisms of his work from both the right and the left because of his political stance on issues ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to humanitarian intervention to free speech. What are the limits on presidential power? The first part focuses on different theoretical approaches to making sense of the relation between religion, politics, and society, discussing especially the concept of the 'secular' in Western thought and decolonial critique thereof. It looks at how difference works and has worked, how identities and power relationships have been grounded in lived experience, and how one might both critically and productively approach questions of difference, power, and equity. This course focuses on Sobukwe's Africanist project and Biko's Black Consciousness Movement, the strategies against apartheid they promoted, and the visions of a free South Africa they imagined. How has the relation between the governors and the governed changed over time, and what factors and events have shaped those relations? What role do moral and legal considerations play in world politics? And who are the groups who shape how media portray the world to us? We will also attend to empirical evaluations of signature liberal efforts around democratization, development, and human rights. [more], With red states and blue states, partisan divisions in Congress, and even disputes about wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus, few question the fact of a polarized America. Contemporary social science and the humanities overwhelmingly portray it as a critique of black politics in the latter's liberal, libertarian, and conservative forms. We study structures, processes, key events, and primary actors that have shaped American political development. In investigating this theme, our cornerstone will be Max Weber's famous argument from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. While the primary focus will be on the meaning of the texts in the context of their own times, contemporary applications of core concepts will also be considered. Is power the kind of thing held by individuals, races, genders, classes, discourses, causal mechanisms, institutions, or social structures? [more], This tutorial provides an introduction to comparative political economy by focusing on an enduring puzzle: the spread of capitalism led to both transitions to democracy and dictatorship/authoritarianism. How effective are strategies like cross-domain deterrence? This course is an investigation into contemporary right-wing populism in Europe and North America in its social, economic, and political context. We critically analyze how external actors and resources inform politics on the ground, both around the world and over time, as well as evaluate the normative implications of "foreign intervention." Readings: black politics in the latter's liberal, libertarian, and conservative forms. And what does it mean to study this richly diverse region? Students will develop a conceptual toolkit to study the politics of capitalism based in the economic history of the rich democracies (Europe, United States) in the twentieth century. into the "problem space" of Black Political Thought, students will examine the historical and structural conditions, normative arguments, theories of action, ideological conflicts, and conceptual evolutions that help define African American political imagination. Does freedom require leading (or avoiding) a political life? The course will then examine the following subjects: the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan; theories of the nuclear revolution; the early Cold War period; the development and implications of thermonuclear weapons; the Berlin and Cuban missile crises; nuclear accidents; nuclear terrorism and illicit nuclear networks; the future of nuclear energy; regional nuclear programs; preventive strikes on nuclear facilities; nuclear proliferation; and contemporary policy debates. Other critics take aim at the two-party system with the claim that the major parties fail to offer meaningful choices to citizens. How does a state's nuclear posture affect basic political outcomes? In the latter half of the course, students will have the opportunity to design, conduct, and present their own final research projects. This course investigates the political theory of Rastafari in order to develop intellectual resources for theorizing the concept of agency in contemporary Africana thought and political theory. uses this category, to what ends, and with what success. At the conclusion of the seminar, each student will submit a substantial and rigorous 10-12 page research proposal, with an annotated bibliography, for a roughly 35 page "article-length" thesis to be completed during Winter Study and the spring semester. For instance, do the claims of individual freedom conflict with those of community? The bulk of the course deals with the major events in the history of great power politics, such as the causes and conduct of World War I and World War II; the origins and course of the Cold War; the nuclear revolution; and the post-Cold War period. Particular attention will be devoted to the contrast between the views of Trump and those of the American foreign policy establishment over issues such as NATO, nuclear proliferation, Russia, immigration, terrorism, free trade, and conflicts in the Middle East. Thinkers we will engage include Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Catherine MacKinnon, Hannah Arendt, and Patricia Hill Collins. consider how neo-liberalism is defined, the role of states in making and maintaining neo-liberalism, the centrality of markets to neo-liberal conceptions, and the kinds of politics that produced and are produced by neo-liberalism. Throughout the semester, we will not only approach these questions from the joint perspectives of theory and practice but also seek to enrich our understanding by exploring American democracy as it happens all around us with several exercises in the community at large. What conditions are necessary to sustain effective leadership in the contemporary world? The first is historical and mostly lecture. What is the relationship between constitutional and political change? [more], For decades, people and countries have used "human rights" to advance their position, delegitimize their opposition, and lodge their interests in an unassailable political category. Although parties have been celebrated for linking citizens to their government and providing the unity needed to govern in a political system of separated powers, they have also been disparaged for inflaming divisions among people and grid-locking the government. The pandemic, related economic distress, social protests and insurrection have only sharpened the precarious state of U.S. democracy. Throughout the semester we interrogate three themes central to migration politics (and political science): rights, access, and agency. Who should rule? Williams College Political Economy Website Political Economy Major Requirements Political Economy Course Offerings The Political Economy major is designed to give students a grasp of the ways in which political and economic forces interact in shaping public policy. Among our questions: Is it really possible to pinpoint a moment in time when the state came into existence? Along the way, we will consider a number of longstanding questions in the study of politics, such as: is the public rational? Specifically, the seminar will address the election of Donald Trump as president, the furor around Brexit in the United Kingdom and the authority of the European Union in Europe, and challenges to the hegemony of global finance and controversies around immigration in both the United States and Europe. This research seminar investigates organized international, multilateral attempts to mold a delinquent country's domestic politics by enforcing extranational standards. The third part surveys significant topics relevant to the themes of the course, with applications to current public policy issues, such as: power relations and autonomy in the workplace; asymmetric information and social insurance; economic inequality and distributive justice; equality of opportunity; the economics of health care; positional goods and the moral foundations of capitalism; social media and addiction; economic nationalism; behavioral economics; climate change and intergenerational equity; finance and financial crises; and rent-seeking. A phenomenal strategy? The course traces the conservative welfare state's development from its origins in late nineteenth and early twentieth century corporatism, through the rise of Christian Democracy and the consolidation of conservative welfare regimes in continental Europe after World War Two, to its contemporary challenges from secularism, feminism, and neoliberalism. [more], The emergence of Rastafari in the twentieth century marked a distinct phase in the theory and practice of political agency. We next assess major dimensions that have historically shaped the study of African politics, including conflict and violence, economic development, and foreign aid. One of the key questions we will seek to answer is why Kennan and Kissinger disagreed on so many important issues, ranging from the Vietnam War to the role of nuclear weapons, despite their shared intellectual commitment to Realism. What might we expect to come next? Our investigation will include substantial class-time collaboration with a similarly structured undergraduate course taught by a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University and may include an optional weekend research trip. The questions have sparked controversy since the origins of political thinking; the answers remain controversial now. We will take notice of the erasure of waste in traditional political theory and work together to fill these gaps. Its critics point to what they believe this position ignores or what it wrongly assumes, and hence, how it would make bad policy. We cover the history, structures and functions of international organizations using case studies. in East Asia: Security, economy, and culture by using some core concepts and theoretical arguments widely accepted in the study of international relations. This course is an investigation into relations between the sexes in the developed world, the fate of children and the family, and government attempts to shape them. It covers domestic and international factors that lead to democratization and democratic backsliding. Readings draw from academic scholarship, media commentary, and current events as they unfold. Ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity is offset by common cultural traditions and practices that serve to unite the people of the Indian Subcontinent. This course is an advanced seminar devoted to a comprehensive examination of Fanon's political thought. Catalog Williams Catalog Courses and Programs 2022-23 Political Science Political Science Spring 2022-23 Political Science Spring 2022-23 Catalog Search Updating enrollment. How can this be? Important topics include: the colonial experience and independence; race relations and the African diaspora; national identity and authoritarian populist nationalism; war and state-building; American exceptionalism, religion, and foreign policy; criminal justice; and the origins and shape of the welfare state. Our concern with these events is not with why they happened as or when they did but, rather, with how they altered the American political order once they did--with how they caused shifts in political alignments, created demands for political action, or resulted in a reordering of political values. By the completion of the semester, students will understand both the successes and failures of modern environmental law and how these laws are being reinvented, through innovations like pollution credit trading and "green product" certification, to confront globalization, climate change and other emerging threats. As we examine the debates over inclusion, we will consider different views about the relationship among political, civil, and social rights as well as different interpretations of American identity, politics, and democracy. itself. Modern Midas? thinkers with a view to identifying their central tenets, both negative and positive. What should be done to dissuade the authoritarian regime in North Korea from acquiring nuclear capabilities and lead it to different paths toward national survival? We will explore answers to these questions through seminar discussion, analytic essays, and independent research culminating in the writing of a longer (15 to 20 page) research paper. One central concern will be to consider the different ways of understanding "Asia", both in terms of how the term and the region have been historically constituted; another will be to facilitate an understanding some of the salient factors (geography, belief systems, economy and polity)--past and present--that make for Asia's coherence and divergences; a third concern will be to unpack the troubled notions of "East" and "West" and re-center Asia within the newly emerging narratives of global interconnectedness. At the core of feminism lies the critique of inequitable power relations. climate change) are organized and mobilized. Does economic development drive political change, or the other way around? How (if at all) should we reconcile contemporary morality with historical context in assessing the leaders from our past? Why are some countries stable democracies while others struggle with military coups or authoritarian rule? How have its constitutive institutions, from pensions to unemployment insurance, evolved since the post-war "Golden Age"? How do nuclear weapons affect great power politics? In the mid-1970s, New York was a poster child of urban crisis, plagued by arson and housing abandonment, crime, the loss of residents and jobs, and failing public services. We will engage some of the central questions and issues in the current debate on East Asia. Why do people identify with political parties? What types of institutions, dynamics, and processes animate American political life in the twenty-first century? Cases include piracy, claims in the South China Sea, bonded labor, refugee quarantine, Arctic transit, and ocean pollution. What is democracy, how does it arise, and how might it fail? What lessons might we derive for our own times from studying this history? Not even the Civil War could resolve this issue, as demonstrated by the failure of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. Some readings will be historical, particularly those focusing on American political thought and the politics of the Gilded Age. Can the strategies theorists propose and employ really aid in the advancement of racial equity? We will begin by examining institutional constraints facing political leaders: globalization, sclerotic institutions, polarization, endemic racism, and a changing media environment. This course addresses the controversies, drawing examples from struggles over such matters as racism, colonialism, revolution, political founding, economic order, and the politics of sex and gender, while focusing on major works of ancient, modern, and contemporary theory by such authors as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, Beauvoir, Arendt, Fanon, Rawls, Foucault, and Young. The course begins with several sessions that provide a technical overview of key information security concepts and an examination of some prominent hacks. Then, after a few discussion classes on migration, organized crime, political corruption, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other issues facing the current government of Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, we turn to a seminar-style discussion of student research projects. Senior Seminar in American Politics: Polarized America. Is democratic leadership in service of "dangerous" goals acceptable, and what are these goals? The course goes back to the founding moments of an imagined white-Christian Europe and how the racialization of Muslim bodies was central to this project and how anti-Muslim racism continues to be relevant in our world today. Hoc Tribunals for crimes in Yugoslavia and those in Rwanda, in Sierra Leone and in Cambodia are giving way to a permanent International Criminal Court, which has begun to hand down indictments and refine its jurisdiction. Any diagnosis of contemporary maladies is premised on a vision of what a healthy functioning republic looks like. Thus, this class is organized as a collaborative investigation with the aims of: 1) examining how whiteness and other historically dominant perspectives shape International Relations theory and research areas; 2) expanding and improving our understanding of International Relations through different lenses (e.g. Is solidarity possible only in utopia, or can we realize it in the world as well? But since the Revolution, leaders have been fighting to make real for all Americans the promise of government of, by, and for the people. For whom do they function? Thus, this class is organized as a collaborative investigation with the aims of: 1) examining how whiteness and other historically dominant perspectives shape International Relations theory and research areas; 2) expanding and improving our understanding of International Relations through different lenses (e.g. Despite the importance of notions of power across the social sciences, there is a broad lack of consensus. What are the forces that shape whether citizens pay attention to politics, vote, work on campaigns, protest, or engage in other types of political action? We end by asking: Do anti-democratic means have to be employed to fully realize democracy? Are the politics of the presidency different in foreign and domestic policy? Silicon Valley: Digital Transformation and Democracy. sciences through history: for example, some feminists argue that science has historically been premised upon a view of women as objects, not subjects, of knowledge. This course focuses on questions about the public value of wealth and its accumulation, which have become more pressing now that the richest one percent of Americans own about 40 percent of privately held wealth. defeat of Nazi Germany? The purpose is to gain an understanding of a number of different perspectives on life and politics, especially Confucianism, Legalism and Daoism. Throughout the semester, our goal will be less to remember elaborate doctrinal rules and multi-part constitutional "tests" than to understand the changing nature of, and changing relationship between, constitutional power and constitutional meaning in American history. an accident, or find yourself plunged somehow into poverty. The class will begin with background readings, since no prior work in Chinese philosophy or history is assumed. If so, should it be Hebrew or Yiddish? is a solution. What kinds of selfhood and relationships do they promote or thwart? How are we to understand this contradiction as a matter of justice? Should feminist theory embrace objectivity and model itself upon scientific procedures of knowledge production? We will take notice of the erasure of waste in traditional political theory and work together to fill these gaps. The course extends over one semester and the winter study period. Important topics include: the colonial experience and independence; race relations and the African diaspora; national identity and authoritarian populist nationalism; war and state-building; American exceptionalism, religion, and foreign policy; criminal justice; and the origins and shape of the welfare state. Do science and technology serve to transform or reinforce power imbalances based on gender, race, and sexuality? What is the relationship between justice and equality, and what do we owe one another in a deeply divided world? been lauded as both a worthy individual activity and a vital component of the nation's public interest. An important goal of the course is to encourage students from different backgrounds to think together about issues of common human concern. What are the root causes of racism? What constitutes dangerous leadership, and what makes a leader dangerous? We will not only describe American involvement in various international issues but also seek to understand the reasons why the US perhaps should or should not be involved, and we will see why such careful reasoning only sometimes gains traction in actual US foreign policy debates. In much of the rest of the world, however, conservatives harbor no hatred of the state and, when in power, have constructed robust systems of social welfare to support conservative values. They also have produced attempts by both internal and external actors to resolve the issues. It covers domestic and international factors that lead to democratization and democratic backsliding. Do black lives matter? From the perspective of the public sphere, we investigate the firm as an actor whose power maps uneasily onto the channels of democratic representation. What does it mean to be an American? Does income inequality threaten the political equality necessary for a strong democracy? We investigate these and related questions, primarily through active, project-based group research activities, guided by political theory and empirical research in the social sciences. What accounts for the continuities, and what for the changes? What distinguishes that kind of life from others? Two years later he formed the Pan-Africanist Congress. This seminar, after discussing briefly the institutions and logic of neoliberalism, will address recent challenges to it from both the left and the right in the United States and Europe. Possible authors include Arendt, Bal, Belting, Benjamin, Browne, Buck-Morss, Butler, Campt, Clark, Crary, Debord, Deleuze, Fanon, Foucault, Freedberg, Hobbes, Kittler, Mercer, Mitchell, Mulvey, Plato, Rancire, Scott, Sexton, Starr, Virilio, Warburg, and Zeki. seemed incapable of representing citizens and addressing problems. We will engage primarily with political science, but also with scholarship in other disciplines, including sociology, history, geography, and legal studies, all of which share an interest in the questions we will be exploring. Must the freedom or fulfillment of some people require the subordination of others? Themes include: Where does political power come from? Should they embrace nationalism or cosmopolitanism? We also attend to the emigration governance of diaspora citizens particularly from the Global South. We consider why and how the spread of capitalism led to the birth of democracy in some countries, but dictatorships in others? The course concludes with a focus on the current debate over American meritocracy and inequality. [more], This weekly tutorial has alternating primary and secondary writers (5pages/2pages).
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