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Oppenheimer (2023) may have been a great film, but its focus on individuals tends to obscure the harsh reality that the structural inequality governing the possession of nuclear weapons (the ‘haves’ vs. the ‘have nots’) has become ossified to the point of normalization in the conduct of inter-state relations. What does it mean that there are only five states that are officially recognized as a Nuclear-Weapon State (NWS) in a world of almost 200 states? What issues of morality and justice emanate from this stark hierarchy of power? This course will use nuclear weapons as a central prism to explore international politics from those both wielding the power and those without.

This course provides students with an introduction to the domestic politics of contemporary China. How has China become the world's most enduring authoritarian regime? What factors contribute to its remarkable economic growth? What are the political and economic challenges it faces? The course is divided into two parts: the first part explores the historical span from the end of the last imperial dynasty to the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. The second part examines China’s economic reform and political dynamics over the past forty years

An interdisciplinary investigation into the role of race and racism in the formation and operation of the global political economy. Our explorations will place traditional historic examples in counterpoint with contemporary research, using both qualitative and quantitative social-science skills to understand how racism/dispossession has occurred and continues to flourish. International and intercultural context will be emphasized, to see these problems as part of a global challenge. We aim to empower students with tools to identify, challenge and counteract these corrosive social forces in today’s society and in our own lives.

From early trade, the subsequent “scramble” to colonize the continent, Cold War pressures, and now the demands of international business and development, Africa has always played a central role in international relations. An understanding of historical and contemporary African politics, particularly how African state and non-state actors forge and leverage transnational relationships, is imperative for addressing some of the most pressing challenges the international community faces today. From a renewed wave of extremist militarism and democratic backsliding in the Sahel, private mercenaries such as the Wagner Group vying for influence across the sub-Saharan region, and unprecedented Chinese investment in both domestic infrastructure and regional governance organizations, Africa is poised to be a critical front in the mid-21st century’s most consequential political power struggles. This course offers a historical overview of Africa in international politics, with a focus on applying extant theory to better understand and test those theories' relevance in interpreting international relations.

This course offers a broad overview of the study of comedy and politics in contemporary U.S. popular media, electioneering, and governance, drawing expansively from methodologies in the critical Humanities and Social Sciences, including Critical Theory, the Frankfurt School, British Cultural Studies, and contemporary Critical Race Theory, among others. The concept of ‘ideology’ will serve as a lynchpin in the course. We will examine how the structures and appeals of comedic performance, both as a means of commenting on politics and as a device employed by politicians, have shifted over time in ways that resonate with similar shifts in academic definitions of ideology (i.e., ideology as a product of the culture industry, ideology as irrationality or reification, ideology as practice rather that cognition, ideology as affect, etc.)

Under attack from within and without, democracy has had its worst decade since the end of the cold war. In this course, Popović and Đinović, two of the world’s leading pro-democracy activists, help students understand the diverse sources of this contemporary decline and develop social movement strategies to defend democratic institutions and practices and build community resilience. The course will include virtual Zoom visits from pro-democracy activists from around the world.

This course introduces students to the basics of data as applied to political science. It addresses key questions such as: Where can we find data? How can we effectively organize it? And how do we develop compelling narratives or arguments based on quantitative information? The class has two main objectives: equipping students with skills in using computing and programming tools for data management and analysis, and providing a conceptual understanding of why certain approaches to data management or analysis may be more suitable in specific contexts. No prior knowledge of statistics or programming is required.

Interpretivists in the social sciences argue that positivism—what we often think of as the “science” of regular laws, consistent relationships, and objective concepts—cannot sufficiently make sense of our social worlds. But what exactly does it mean to do rigorous inquiry beyond the positivist paradigm? This course investigates interpretivism as an epistemological (or ontological) position and as a set of methods that can be used to answer political questions across multiple paradigms.

Since the Enlightenment, philosophers and historians have argued that individual freedom and autonomy depend upon the confinement of religious beliefs and practices to the private sphere. On their view, the spread and entrenchment of institutions of modernity would result in the decline of religion as an active moral and political force. These modern ways of thinking assume that there are discrete entities called religion and the secular; where the latter is conceived as the arena of activities such as politics, economics and science in which religion has no place. In this seminar, we will examine the phenomena of religion and the secular and their place in the modern world through close readings of historical, sociological, philosophical and anthropological works that address the question of religion and its relationship to politics in diverse contexts such as the Middle East, South Asia, Europe and the United States. Our aim will be to acquire an understanding of the variety of ways in which the relationship between religion and politics is configured and debated and to complicate our understanding of key concepts and problems such as modernity, progress, freedom, citizenship and belonging, religious difference, toleration, and the question of religious minorities. (Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.) 1 unit - Chandrani.

This course utilizes works of literature and scripture from various religious and legal cultures, as well as study of the lives of several historical figures (notably Sir Thomas More and John Brown), as catalysts to facilitate a conversation about the intersections of law and human conceptions of the divine. Among the topics considered will be: (1) The nature of divinity and human perceptions of divine intervention in human affairs, particularly in the myths and literature of ancient Greece and Rome; (2) God as lawgiver and God's law as a code for everyday life, particularly in Talmudic Judaism; (3) reflections on how the New Testament's presentation of a God bringing historical time to an imminent close meshes with the imperative of human social ordering; (4) the rise of the Catholic Church as a religious lawmaking and law-enforcing institution, particularly in the European Middle Ages; (5) the life of Sir/St. Thomas More as a window into the changes in the relation of church to law by the Protestant Reformation; (6) John Brown and the problem of American slavery; and (6) the fundamental question of whether human law has any moral basis unless grounded in divine command?

We will examine various philosophical arguments for the claims that human beings, as human beings, possess rights which other human beings and governments are obliged to respect and fulfill. Particular attention will be paid to: analyzing contemporary conceptions of human rights; how various difficulties with contemporary human rights doctrines are illuminated by considering them within the context of the profound historical shift from understanding justice in terms of natural law, to natural rights, and then to human rights; and lastly, assessing contemporary debates, as well as critiques of universal human rights doctrines, including from the perspective of multiculturalism and critical race theory. 1 unit. Grace Counts for the political philosophy subfield, or as a 10th course to satisfy PS major requirements.