williams college political science course catalog

Is this a positive sign that the United States is governed by its most talented and capable members who have risen through hard work and equal opportunity? Readings and discussions provide a view on the past and ongoing use of media in the shaping of popular knowledge, collective actions, and public policies. Is there a resource curse, or is it possible for mineral rich countries to escape the modern counterparts of Midas? Four class debates will focus general concepts on a specific topic: the global implications of the Russo-Ukrainian War. 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.This course's goal is to show how the racialization of Islam and Muslims has been constitutive to the latter's imagination. Where did Democratic and Republican foreign policy elites agree and disagree and what happened to proposals that were outside the elite consensus? 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. or a substance and what is the relationship between democratic government and market economies? Throughout the semester we interrogate four themes central to migration politics: rights, representation, access, and agency. [more], After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously declared "the end of history". 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. 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. Who is equal? Jews had to decide where to pin their hopes. How does partisanship become tribalism or hyper-partisanship, and can this be prevented? Or is economic crisis the key to understanding the conditions under which dictatorships fall? Du Bois and the subsequent cleavages in political thought and allegiances among their respective adherents will be addressed, along with various other core issues including: the relationship between race, nation, and empire; transnationalism; the meaning of power; notions of leadership; the limitations of understanding Garveyism by the phrase "Back-to-Africa"; the moral philosophy of respect, reparation, and redemption; prophetic political theory; Pan-Africanism; the impact of Garveyism on political theological movements such as the Nation of Islam and Rastafari; women in the Garvey movement; and Garveyite strategies for forging models of political solidarity in dark times. What might we expect to come next? It considers several themes, including the slow emergence of a stable national state and the interplay between politics and economic change. seem to solve some problems while often leading to perverse economic and political outcomes? How significant of a threat are concerns like nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear accidents? To create and maintain political order requires devising collective means to pile up, bury, burn, or otherwise dispose of stuff deemed dirty or disorderly: waste management is regime management. The last section of the course covers contemporary policy challenges confronting the Middle East. What is the cause of this loss of faith in the future? Politics is our focus. We will critically analyze how those categories are constructed at the international and domestic levels, as well as how those categorizations are also racialized, politicized, and gendered. The implications of Garvey's conflict with W. E. B. We will then use our investigation of how different authors, and different traditions, understand the nation to help us assess contemporary politics and come to our own conclusions about what animates conflicts. will examine multi-disciplinary texts, such as academic historical narratives, memoirs, political analyses, in critical and comparative readings of mid-late 20th century struggles. What kinds of alternatives to objectivity exist, and should they, too, count as "science"? Here we look closely at whether it is economic development which leads to the spread of democracy. [more], Authoritarian regimes are plentiful in the world today. Can the strategies theorists propose and employ really aid in the advancement of racial equity? In substantive terms, the class covers the rise of the Zionist movement; the effects of the First World War on the Middle East; the international politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict; the geopolitics of the area's energy resources; the Cold War in the Middle East; the causes and consequences of the Iranian Revolution; the rise of Islamist movements; the Arab Spring; terrorism; the specter of nuclear proliferation in the area; the Syrian conflict; and the role of the United States in the Middle East. They also have produced attempts by both internal and external actors to resolve the issues. The course introduces students to the comparative politics of South Asia, highlighting the complexities and potential of the region. They contend that it legitimates a view of the status quo, in which such terrible things are bound to happen without real cause. the 2016 presidential election. Readings draw on philosophy, history, sociology, and international relations, but as a political science class we emphasize politics. Should "religion" be singled-out for exclusion from government? The course will show how Muslims were constructed as subjects in history, politics, and society from the very beginning of the making of Europe and the Americas to the end of the Cold War to the post-9/11 era. Who loses? And on what grounds can we justify confidence in our provisional answers to such questions? What types of institutions, dynamics, and processes animate American political life in the twenty-first century? What are the root causes of racism? We will examine leadership to better understand American democracy--and vice versa. It begins by weighing competing definitions of democracy focusing on two kinds of questions. "rights"? How does international war leave its mark on domestic politics? I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress." [more], This course provides an overview of the international relations of the Middle East, with a special focus on the period from the late nineteenth century to the present. Even before the coronavirus pandemic gave us reason to wonder if we are, in fact, living through an apocalypse, speculation about the end of the world and its aftermath pervaded recent television, movies, literature, philosophy, and critical theory. Du Bois' great book, Black Reconstruction in America. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the Second World War, a strong bipartisan consensus emerged around the principles of liberal international internationalism and "America First" perspectives were marginalized in American politics. In weekly one-hour sessions, students read their work aloud followed by dialogue and critique. The seminar will examine: original source materials; academic/popular interpretations and representations of the BPP; hagiography; iconography; political rebellion, political theory. [more], Arguably, the dominant discourse in American politics today is about race. Political theory addresses questions such as these as it investigates the fundamental problems of how people can, do, and ought to live together. As a background to understanding the reasons for and histories of these policies, this course will read several important books that deal with the Great Depression, the financial crisis a decade ago, and the risks of debt. optimism, pessimism, enslavement, freedom, creativity, and being human? thinkers with a view to identifying their central tenets, both negative and positive. modernity and of politics offered by such thinkers as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Mill, and Freud. This tutorial will first examine the nature of their relationship to both Realist and Wilsonian perspectives on American foreign relations. And what are their views on diversity, citizenship, and race, and how do heterodox leftists fit with conservative critiques of managerial liberalism? social conventions that treat the human body as a form of property. 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. In most other respects, it is the same: it protects the status quo, including the unequal distribution of power among its members; it spells out legitimate and illegitimate ways of resolving conflicts of interest; it is biased toward the powerful and legitimates their interests; it tells its members how to act to coordinate their interests and minimize direct conflict; some of it is purely aspirational, some of it necessary for survival. Contributions to theory include the writings and activism of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Contemporary social science and the humanities overwhelmingly portray it as a critique of black politics in the latter's liberal, libertarian, and conservative forms. In this course, we will look at how leaders have marshaled ideas, social movements, and technological changes to expand the scope of American democracy--and the reasons they have sometimes failed. The class is divided into four sections. We will go on to discuss the U.S. support for Islamist political parties during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and the consequent rise of the Taliban, and the role of Afghanistan in the September 11th attacks and the "War on Terror" that followed. [more], This class is interested in thinking critically and empirically about one of the most polarizing and relevant issues of our time: how countries regulate cross-border mobility. It considers several themes, including the slow emergence of a stable national state and the interplay between politics and economic change. Does freedom require leading (or avoiding) a political life? Senior Seminar: Interpretations of American Politics. sexuate rights). By the character of the occupant? Other critics take aim at the two-party system with the claim that the major parties fail to offer meaningful choices to citizens. The Trump Era and the Future of World Politics. forty six, Orwell produced a stunningly large and diverse body of work in the fields of journalism, literature, and political commentary. We will explore conflicts over how "the people" are defined in different moments, and we will examine how these conflicts connect to the exercise of state power in areas including territorial expansion, census taking, public health, immigration, social welfare, and policing. As a final assignment, students will craft an 18-20-page research paper on a topic of their choice related to the themes of the course. We interrogate the terms 'media,' 'politics,' and 'power.' Type in your search terms and press enter or navigate down for suggested search results. This course introduces students to capitalism by examining the struggles between social groups that lead to variation in distributional outcomes and economic performance. 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. Safety measures are in place, and campus community members and guests are additionally advised to take personal precautions. We will evaluate the role of race as it relates to public opinion, political behavior, campaigns, political institutions, and public policy debates, with special attention devoted to the nature of racial attitudes. What is it and how might it work? The course ends with a discussion of the successes and failures of the European Union as the principal embodiment of the liberal project today. This course will investigate this debate over parties by examining their nature and role in American political life, both past and present. What makes American political leadership distinctive in international comparison? As a writing intensive course, attention to the writing process and developing an authorial voice will be a recurrent focus of our work inside and outside the classroom. [more], A central tenet of political science is that once a country reaches a certain level of political and economic development, democracy will endure indefinitely. How should we respond to the fact that these unbearable beings persist in existing, despite our best efforts to eliminate them? What are the powers and obligations of citizenship? 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 consider some of the complicated legacies of change. Must the freedom or fulfillment of some people require the subordination of others? uses this category, to what ends, and with what success. political in response to twentieth century dictatorships and world wars; feminist, queer, anti-racist, post- and decolonial struggles; the transformations wrought by neoliberal globalization; the emergence of "algorithmic governance"; the recent resurgence of populist nationalism; and deepening recognition of climate crises. We will ask: How have city leaders and social movements engaged with urban problems? Approaching the firm as both arena and actor in a number of capitalist democracies, we will compare the politics of business across different sectors, but will focus especially on tech and finance. From Ho Chi Minh's anti-lynching writing, the founding conference of the WIDF (Women's International Democratic Federation) in China in 1945, through the Bandung Conference, coalitions against U.S. wars in Southeast Asia, and alignments with Chinese anti-imperialist endeavors, black and Asian peoples have joined in international political formations. Then, we examine what contemporary democratic theorists have had to say about how racial equity might be achieved and how they have sought to advance this goal through their writing. Wherever they might go, should they aspire to build a modern Jewish nation-state, a semi-autonomous Jewish community, or some other arrangement? This course explores the relationship between politics and economics by surveying influential works of political economy.

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