williams college political science course catalog

In this seminar we will openly discuss unmentionable topics and get our hands dirty (sometimes literally) examining the politics of waste. We will discuss signature liberal theorists both classic and current as well as some of their most notable critics. Does income inequality threaten the political equality necessary for a strong democracy? What makes American political leadership distinctive in international comparison? It entertains competing answers to central questions in the field: What are the implications of an anarchic political structure for order and justice in world politics? At the same time that it was facing a more difficult military challenge than anticipated, the United States got bogged down in the process of nation-building, as well as efforts at social reform. On the other hand, shifting ideas about science have strongly influenced the development of feminist theory and practice: for example, debates about reproductive rights are often couched in terms of a conflict between reliable scientific knowledge of embryos, STDs, etc. 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. What role do moral and legal considerations play in world politics? But do the people actually govern, and should they? Particular attention will be given to the modern liberal tradition and its critics. 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. American Realism: Kennan, Kissinger and the American Style of Foreign Policy, In addition to their distinguished careers in government, both men have published well regarded and popular scholarship on various aspects of American foreign policy, international relations, and nuclear weapons. In this class we explore the dark side of democracy. How did we get to this point and what does the future hold? The final section takes a comparative approach to some of the most pressing issues in Africa today: health crises, migration and mobility, technological revolution, climate change, and the emerging power of women and youth. Those who proclaimed "liberty, egality, fraternity" for themselves violently denied them to others. It then explores more deeply the reasons for the breakdown of this settlement, the rise of Hugo Chavez, and the decay of the "21st Century Socialist" regime under Chavez and Maduro. 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. Yet, despite 40 years of increasingly varied and complex legislation, balancing human needs and environmental quality has never been harder than it is today. Or whether it is economic crises which make the movement to democracy possible. What is our individual and collective responsibility for creating and disposing of waste? things that happen in and around the political world--are often underestimated as catalysts of political change. [more], Noam Chomsky emerged as one of the most influential figures in the development of modern linguistics during the 1950's. The first half is a historical survey of U.S.-Latin American foreign relations from the early Spanish American independence movements through the end of the Cold War and recent developments. Political theory addresses questions such as these as it investigates the fundamental problems of how people can, do, and ought to live together. 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. The final module introduces students to theory and methods for analyzing media relations (how a given media connects particular groups in particular ways). Are legal citizenship and formal political rights sufficient for belonging? Why is immigration policy so contentious? It is multilateral institutions ruling in peacetime that is relatively new. Do the institutions produce good policies, and how do we define what is good? Yet inequality in wealth may conflict with the political equality necessary for democratic governance and public trust, leading to concerns that we are sacrificing community, fairness, and opportunity for the benefit of a small portion of the population. Economically, the course will look at the institutional configuration of neo-liberalism, changes in economies, growing inequality, the financial crises, and prevalence of debt. With Tocqueville as a guide to thinking about political ethnography, this course investigates four central elements of political life--religion, education, difference, and crime and punishment--that simultaneously pose problems for and represent sites of progress in American democracy. The seminar will examine: original source materials; academic/popular interpretations and representations of the BPP; hagiography; iconography; political rebellion, political theory. Primary papers are due to respondent/professor 48hrs before the tutorial meets; response papers are emailed to the professor 2hours before the weekly tutorial meets. Two questions will anchor the tutorial: how is the nation defined and what, if any, class interests are folded into various definitions? Here, we will discuss the role of religion in American political culture, the relation of religion to the state, the relevance of religious interests and their political mobilization, religious minorities in the United States, and many other aspects of religion in the US society. This tutorial has two main objectives. Is solidarity possible only in utopia, or can we realize it in the world as well? The last quarter of class focuses on student projects, on integrating and revising research to produce a set of findings and an evaluation of their meaning. Should Harriet Tubman's portrait replace Andrew Jackson's on the $20 bill? Here, we will discuss the role of religion in American political culture, the relation of religion to the state, the relevance of religious interests and their political mobilization, religious minorities in the United States, and many other aspects of religion in the US society. How does a state's nuclear posture affect basic political outcomes? Can certain forms of power be considered more feminist than others? The second half of the course challenges students to apply this toolkit to the twenty-first century, focusing on attempts to transition from industrial manufacturing to services. We invite students either to organize their major through the subfields that structure the discipline of political science (American politics, international relations, political theory, and comparative politics), or to develop individual concentrations reflecting their particular interests, regardless of subfields. Can and should the link between humans and politics survive in an age in which "posthuman" or "transhuman" entities become central characters in the drama of politics? Finally, we will also examine how Chomsky's views, largely considered to be radical for much of his life, have become far more mainstream over time. And what is justice? Finally, we examine recent theories of screen and spectacle--read both for their resonances with and departures from debates over the Platonic legacy--and case studies in the politics of both military and racial spectacles in the U.S. What is the relationship of thinkers who emphasize the market, order, and traditional values? This course will examine how we conduct the most fundamental of democratic processes in the United States: the people's choice of their representatives. 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. With Tocqueville as a guide to thinking about political ethnography, this course investigates four central elements of political life--religion, education, difference, and crime and punishment--that simultaneously pose problems for and represent sites of progress in American democracy. Riven by polarized partisanship and gridlock, the most powerful assembly in the world seemed incapable of representing citizens and addressing problems. [more], This course examines the relationships between broad economic structures and political institutions. with a creative option = 50%; short response paper and GLOW posts = 10%; participation (attendance and class discussion) = 10% [more], Contrasted as "model minorities" or "incorrigible minorities" Asian Americans and African Americans have been pitted against one another in social standing and political objectives. And on what grounds can we justify confidence in our provisional answers to such questions? Why do people identify with political parties? And we will search her works and our world for embers of hope that even seemingly inexorable political tragedies may yet be interrupted by assertions of freedom in political action. Cases include piracy, claims in the South China Sea, bonded labor, refugee quarantine, Arctic transit, and ocean pollution. And what is justice? In addition, the beginning of the course will include several classes on the theoretical implications of the advent of the cyber age, as well as a brief historical overview of information security in the post-World War II period. How does political leadership in the 21st century differ from leadership in earlier eras? Materials include biographies, documentary films, short videos, economic data, and news reports. To provide a broader context for Marcuse's critical theory, we will read a selection of his writings alongside related texts by Kant, Marx, Freud, and Davis. How does all of that media consumption influence the American political system? Then the class will read significant portions of the following canonical works: Radical Theories of Political Struggle: Anti-Black Racism and the Obama Administration. For whom do they function? Does freedom make us happy? If so, should they focus their efforts on relocation to the historical land of Israel? This suggests that the better we can understand the nature of cause and effect, the better we can understand power. With a theoretical grounding in the "Black radical tradition," students will leave this course with the conceptual resources and philosophical tools needed to realize political theory's potential as an instrument they can employ in their daily lives to normatively and diagnostically evaluate political, economic, cultural, and social institutions. What kinds of alternatives are considered as solutions to these problems? What kinds of regimes best serve to encourage good leaders and to constrain bad ones? How does racism influence political choices? In addition, we will examine the long-standing arguments among both historians and political scientists over how to explain and interpret the longest and most controversial war in American history. 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 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. The final section of the course examines how scholarly interpretations of the Cold War continue to influence how policymakers approach contemporary issues in American foreign policy. Donald Trump's rise to the presidency was fueled in part by his pledge to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. This seminar explores such questions by investigating the political use of media in the organization of power. Central to the black radical tradition's architecture are inquiries into the concepts of freedom, race, equality, rights, and humanism; meaning of "radical"; the national-transnational relationship; notions of leadership; status of global capitalism; the nexus of theory and praxis; and revolutionary politics. Some readings will be historical, particularly those focusing on American political thought and the politics of the Gilded Age. We will engage classic texts that helped to establish political theory's traditional view of nature as a resource, as well as contemporary texts that offer alternative, ecological understandings of nature and its entwinements with politics. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Robert Williams, Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs, Ishmael Reed, and Amiri Baraka; films of Bruce Lee; music of Fred Ho; revolutionary praxis of Mao Tse Tung's Little Red Book and his writings on art and society; the Marxism of the Black Panther Party; the Afro-futurism of Sun Ra and Samuel Delany; and contemporary "Afro-pessimism." Indeed, a central concern of the founders was that democracy would invite demagogues who would bring the nation to ruin. perhaps the most influential critic of American foreign policy and the Washington national security establishment. How significant of a threat are concerns like nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear accidents? CLASSES DREQ INSTRUCTORS TIMES CLASS# ENROLL CONSENT PSCI 201 - 01 (S) LEC Power,Politics,Democracy Amer Division II Matthew Tokeshi MR 2:35 pm - 3:50 pm Griffin 6

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williams college political science course catalog