1. Let’s go back to the frictions between the individual and community: Politics pertains to the organization and regulation of communities of distinct individuals;
2. Or, politics pertains to the means employed to organize and regulate collective human existence;
3. Politics determines the realms of human affairs: 1) the public realm (sphere); 2) the private realm (sphere);
4. Example: Religious freedom; Economic freedom;
5. Politics structures our lives; Political theory structures politics: conceptual and normative scopes and limits;
6. Because of the genuine lack of exactitude, political theory cannot demarcate every single human endeavor; yet it demarcates the appropriate boundaries of these endeavors;
7. How can we define a political event?
8. The major questions of politics: a) (leadership) Who should wield power? b) (institutional) How should power be distributed? c) (justice) How can power be exercised fairly? d) (liberty and civil rights) What should the limits of power be?
9. Completing points 6 and 7, politics is about power and political theory is our effort to understand the nature of power;
10. According to Bertrand Russell (Power: A new Social Analysis) power is the capacity to produce intended effects;
11. The power of: wealth; eloquence; authority; prestige; tradition; coercion;
12. The limits of power;
13. Good politics, good laws and good arms; Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527): a ruler should be feared by its subjects;
14. Violence and power;
15. Rulers and the exclusivity of power;Coercion, power and government (anarchism and its opponents);
Proudhon (1809-1865) implemented it in the idea of creation of the communes;
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876);
Emma Goldman (1869-1940): anarchism is the philosophy of a new social order of the unrestricted man-made law; we can still have a peaceful life without a government (compare it with Hobbes);
16. According to Robert Dahl, since it deny the legitimacy of law and force, anarchism is more a moral doctrine than a political doctrine—ethic of responsibility (take responsibility of one’s actions: use of force) and ethic of ultimate ends (ignore bad outcomes out of good intentions);
17. Politics is not force and violence; rather it is their control;
18. Power influences but does not force; yet power influences according to a premeditated design;
19. The order/freedom dichotomy: Plato resolves it through the rule of a philosopher king;
20. Power as a zero-sum-game: Hobbes, Weber;
21. Power as a way to serve mutual interests;
22. If we adjust ourselves to interests/requirements of others, power had occurred;
23. Politics are a means of managing conflicts;
24. E. E. Schattschneider: politics as self-defining activity (a considerable amount of power is exercised to define politics): power helps defining issues, control agenda, and choose battles;
25. Conflict and cooperation: politics musters cooperation and manages conflicts; the art of compromise;
26. Politics is about power and power is about influence: not every sort of influence is power and not all exercises of power are political: such are only those that affect public life;
27. The political nature of the private life;
28. POLITICS IS PERVASIVE
THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE PRIVATE SPHERE
1. Politics is about how the power employed to order collective life is accumulated, exercised, and distributed;
2. Yet much private activity affects the public sphere;
3. Thus, rather than categorical, the political activity is relative: the more it addresses public issues, the more political it is;
4. Power as exercised in public forums and power exercised in close door politics;
5. Power as form and power as content;
6. Forms of the exercise of power: public’s compliance and submission to laws; the rule of the king; violence (tyranny); the rule of representatives;
7. Politics and private interests: the pursue of private interests by political means;
8. The contemporary pejorative connotation of politics and its reasons;
9. Politics as conducted by distinct individuals: a public that ceases to be a community of individuals ceases to be a public;
10. Thus, an event is more political if it is more open to the influence of the public and its outcomes affect more the public
11. Bernard Crick: the attempt to politicize everything is the destruction of politics: totalitarianism;
12. Yet Crick acknowledges that nothing can be exempted from politics entirely;Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937): because politics can be found everywhere, it becomes necessary to make distinctions between different levels or degrees of political activity.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
WEEK 2: HUMAN NATURE
1. Language;
2. Reason;
3. The Aristotelian concept of man as zoon logon echon (rational, speaking animal);
4. The Aristotelian concept of man as zoon politikon (a political animal);
5. Living politically versus living collectively;
6. The reason makes individuals self-conscious;
7. Living politically means one to be self-conscious of one’s role in human society;
8. One can be self-conscious only by thinking abstractly;
9. To think abstractly means to extend one’s mind through language and reason, distancing oneself from one’s inner drives that demonstrate self-consciousness;
10. The constructive nature of human community to self-consciousness and vice-versa;
11. THE TENSIONED BALANCE THAT EXISTS BETWEEN THE SELF-CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY CONSTITUTES THE CORE OF POLITICS;
12. The political life depends on the ability of people to conceive themselves as individuals within a community of individuals;
13. The latter depends on one’s thinking abstractly;
14. The endogenity problem between language and reason on the one hand and the existence of community on the other;
15. The sameness of zoon politikon and zoon logon echon;
16. Human beings remain animals: biology defines much of its actions.
HUMAN NATURE AND POLITICS
C.B. Macpherson: the overall merit of a theory largely rests on the depth of its insight into human nature.
1. Plato (427-347 B.C.E): an animal-like desiring part (merchants); a humanlike spirited part (soldiers); a god-like reasoning part (philosophers and rulers);
2. Thucydides (460-400 B.C.E): the strong do what they can and the weaker suffer what they must;
3. Augustine (354-430 C.E.): due to the fallible nature of mankind, the secular government is inherently unstable and doomed to disruption;
4. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74 C.E.): The government of a king is best because if follows the logic of nature;
5. Thomas Paine (1737-1809 C.E.): due to the social characteristics of human nature, government is necessary only to perform in “the few cases to which society and civilization are not conveniently competent;”
6. Madison (1751-1836 C.E.): because latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man, we need some sophisticated architectural engineering of institutions;
7. Hobbes (1588-1679 C.E.): fear motivates man, thus making the human society anarchic; the only way out is to transfer individual sovereignty to the king and pledge allegiance to him.
GENES, MORES AND CULTURE/POLITICS
1. Political life, as various as it can be, cannot free itself from its biological foundation (consider the age limitation to participate in politics);
2. Yet these genes make political life possible (the genes that make as speaking and thinking/reasoning);
3. On the other hand, our political/social life has determined some of our genetic development (consider the case of the midwifery development and its impact on our genetic selection: while the growth in the brain size fostered the development of culture, some rudimentary culture was needed to foster the proliferation of humans with large, complex brains);
4. Hence, we have an endogenic/circular relation between genes and culture;
5. If genes provide the information directives for our organic development, mores provide guidance for our political life;
6. More restrict but also stimulate behavior (albeit the controversy that they create sometimes);
7. The relationship between genes and mores: genes keep mores on a leash; they enforce society to develop mores according to our genetic features, yet they do not determine the total variety of our cultural development (the cases of hair growth and sexual orientation; the case of marriage, family and education as mores developed to tackle with and also take advantage from the exceptionally long human childhood);
8. Yet we are not sure about the length of the genetic leash and its level of elasticity (consider the case of women and men genetic differences and how it is reflected in society);
9. Because of their brain biological complexity, human beings are genetically destined to develop cultural mores and technical means that challenge and stretch their biological propensities and capacities;Thus our genes allow/determine us to structure our lives by mores: these more affect our political life.
MEMES AND MORES
1. Richard Dawkins coined the term meme from Greek word mimeme (imitation); memes serves as units of cultural transitions;
2. Memes serve the cultural reproduction the same ways genes serve the biological reproduction;
3. According to Dawkins, memes leap from brain to brain in an imitation process; our influential acts propagate memes;
4. Memes reproduce much faster and solidly than genes; they can survive intact across countless generations (the example of Socrates genes and memes);
5. Like genes, memes produce mutations and hybrids (cultural differences and progress);
6. A method as a macro-meme;
7. A meme is alive not when it is fossilized but when it actively serves as a parent to the birth of new memes;
8. A meme as a general case of a more;
9. Mores, like genes, influence but do not dictate what we do (reaction range);Likewise, the mores of political theory do not prescribe or proscribe specific thoughts or action; they develop throughout different political lenses; they only influence the types of thought and behavior that individual acknowledge or ignore and accept or reject.
2. Reason;
3. The Aristotelian concept of man as zoon logon echon (rational, speaking animal);
4. The Aristotelian concept of man as zoon politikon (a political animal);
5. Living politically versus living collectively;
6. The reason makes individuals self-conscious;
7. Living politically means one to be self-conscious of one’s role in human society;
8. One can be self-conscious only by thinking abstractly;
9. To think abstractly means to extend one’s mind through language and reason, distancing oneself from one’s inner drives that demonstrate self-consciousness;
10. The constructive nature of human community to self-consciousness and vice-versa;
11. THE TENSIONED BALANCE THAT EXISTS BETWEEN THE SELF-CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY CONSTITUTES THE CORE OF POLITICS;
12. The political life depends on the ability of people to conceive themselves as individuals within a community of individuals;
13. The latter depends on one’s thinking abstractly;
14. The endogenity problem between language and reason on the one hand and the existence of community on the other;
15. The sameness of zoon politikon and zoon logon echon;
16. Human beings remain animals: biology defines much of its actions.
HUMAN NATURE AND POLITICS
C.B. Macpherson: the overall merit of a theory largely rests on the depth of its insight into human nature.
1. Plato (427-347 B.C.E): an animal-like desiring part (merchants); a humanlike spirited part (soldiers); a god-like reasoning part (philosophers and rulers);
2. Thucydides (460-400 B.C.E): the strong do what they can and the weaker suffer what they must;
3. Augustine (354-430 C.E.): due to the fallible nature of mankind, the secular government is inherently unstable and doomed to disruption;
4. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74 C.E.): The government of a king is best because if follows the logic of nature;
5. Thomas Paine (1737-1809 C.E.): due to the social characteristics of human nature, government is necessary only to perform in “the few cases to which society and civilization are not conveniently competent;”
6. Madison (1751-1836 C.E.): because latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man, we need some sophisticated architectural engineering of institutions;
7. Hobbes (1588-1679 C.E.): fear motivates man, thus making the human society anarchic; the only way out is to transfer individual sovereignty to the king and pledge allegiance to him.
GENES, MORES AND CULTURE/POLITICS
1. Political life, as various as it can be, cannot free itself from its biological foundation (consider the age limitation to participate in politics);
2. Yet these genes make political life possible (the genes that make as speaking and thinking/reasoning);
3. On the other hand, our political/social life has determined some of our genetic development (consider the case of the midwifery development and its impact on our genetic selection: while the growth in the brain size fostered the development of culture, some rudimentary culture was needed to foster the proliferation of humans with large, complex brains);
4. Hence, we have an endogenic/circular relation between genes and culture;
5. If genes provide the information directives for our organic development, mores provide guidance for our political life;
6. More restrict but also stimulate behavior (albeit the controversy that they create sometimes);
7. The relationship between genes and mores: genes keep mores on a leash; they enforce society to develop mores according to our genetic features, yet they do not determine the total variety of our cultural development (the cases of hair growth and sexual orientation; the case of marriage, family and education as mores developed to tackle with and also take advantage from the exceptionally long human childhood);
8. Yet we are not sure about the length of the genetic leash and its level of elasticity (consider the case of women and men genetic differences and how it is reflected in society);
9. Because of their brain biological complexity, human beings are genetically destined to develop cultural mores and technical means that challenge and stretch their biological propensities and capacities;Thus our genes allow/determine us to structure our lives by mores: these more affect our political life.
MEMES AND MORES
1. Richard Dawkins coined the term meme from Greek word mimeme (imitation); memes serves as units of cultural transitions;
2. Memes serve the cultural reproduction the same ways genes serve the biological reproduction;
3. According to Dawkins, memes leap from brain to brain in an imitation process; our influential acts propagate memes;
4. Memes reproduce much faster and solidly than genes; they can survive intact across countless generations (the example of Socrates genes and memes);
5. Like genes, memes produce mutations and hybrids (cultural differences and progress);
6. A method as a macro-meme;
7. A meme is alive not when it is fossilized but when it actively serves as a parent to the birth of new memes;
8. A meme as a general case of a more;
9. Mores, like genes, influence but do not dictate what we do (reaction range);Likewise, the mores of political theory do not prescribe or proscribe specific thoughts or action; they develop throughout different political lenses; they only influence the types of thought and behavior that individual acknowledge or ignore and accept or reject.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
WEEK 1: THINKING POLITICS
1. What is a theory? What are its functions and how and why we need them?
2. What is a good theory? Parsimony, accuracy and significance.
What is an elegant theory?
3. What is a scientific theory?
4. What is a normative political/social theory?
Focus on the Weberian tradition of describing historical correlation and tendencies;
why not determining and predicting human behavior?
Weber’s “ideal types and the epistemological foundations of social research.”
5. What is political theory? The interpretative nature of political theory.
The search for meaning: helpful or unhelpful versus true or false;
intersubjectivity versus objectivity;
understanding versus explanation; and strict social scientists versus political/social theorists.
Finally, “political theory offers suggestive conceptual insights that are subject to self-reflective commentary and critique.”
6. The hermeneutics: interpreting texts and the real life;
natural science versus social science—objectivity versus intersubjectivity;
preconceptions and frictions;
the “fusion of horizons”;
7. The critical nature of political theory: normativeness as an element of ethical theory;
epistemology (theory of thinking/knowledge);
the relationship between normativeness and epistemology as the one between deeds and words;
the friction between morality and the tools of its distribution;
8. Conceptual and historical analyses and the relationship between the microscopic and telescopic views of politics;
the advantages of historical analysis.
2. What is a good theory? Parsimony, accuracy and significance.
What is an elegant theory?
3. What is a scientific theory?
4. What is a normative political/social theory?
Focus on the Weberian tradition of describing historical correlation and tendencies;
why not determining and predicting human behavior?
Weber’s “ideal types and the epistemological foundations of social research.”
5. What is political theory? The interpretative nature of political theory.
The search for meaning: helpful or unhelpful versus true or false;
intersubjectivity versus objectivity;
understanding versus explanation; and strict social scientists versus political/social theorists.
Finally, “political theory offers suggestive conceptual insights that are subject to self-reflective commentary and critique.”
6. The hermeneutics: interpreting texts and the real life;
natural science versus social science—objectivity versus intersubjectivity;
preconceptions and frictions;
the “fusion of horizons”;
7. The critical nature of political theory: normativeness as an element of ethical theory;
epistemology (theory of thinking/knowledge);
the relationship between normativeness and epistemology as the one between deeds and words;
the friction between morality and the tools of its distribution;
8. Conceptual and historical analyses and the relationship between the microscopic and telescopic views of politics;
the advantages of historical analysis.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
SYLLABUS
Instructor: Ridvan Peshkopia
Department of Political Science
University of Kentucky
16th floor, Patterson Office Tower
Tel: 859-257-7929
Class schedule: Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 2.00-2.50 p.m.
Location: 233 CB.
Office hours and location: Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 1.00-2.00., 1651 POT. For students who, for emergency reasons or schedule clashes, cannot visit me in the scheduled office hours, arranging an appointment is recommended. You can do it by communicating with me via email.
E-mail address: ridvanpeshkopia@yahoo.com
Blog address: introtopoliticaltheory.blogspot.com
WELCOME TO POLITICAL THEORY! COURSE’S OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTATIONS
This course is divided in two parts: the first one focuses on political thought; the second, on political ideology.
Political thought. One can hardly find any other college course where the word knowledge in its classical meaning can be more appropriately used to describe the subject-matter than what political theory/philosophy tries to deal with. By touching base with the best of the political thought humanity has been able to conceive thus far, we will receive a basic understanding of how human society in general and politics in particular work. We will have an opportunity to analyze what the individual, the community and the state are and how they act and interact in building and consuming politics. Yet, in order to fully grasp such basic knowledge, we will need and learn some basic philosophical concepts that go beyond political philosophy and are applied in other realms of knowledge such as pure and applied science, and ethics. These concepts include theory (a modelic presentation of the world), epistemology (theory of knowledge), ontology (theory of existence), empiricism (theory of proof), metaphysics (theory of thought), and criticism (theory of criticism). From that string of knowledge, in the end of the semester you are expected to have mastered notions such as individual, private, public, community, state, freedom, modernity, and postmodernity.
Political ideology. Political ideology is often an application of the political thought. We can refer to this part of the course as an implementation of what we learned in the first part of it. Clearly the world does not work in such a simplistic way but hey, perhaps we are building a model here. Anyway, let us even formally build this course as a simplified mirror of the real world. Certainly many details will be left out, but this is a price to pay for grasping a wider and more complete view of the world in only one semester. This section of the course probes in some ideological notions such as liberalism, conservatism, communism, fascism, anarchism, feminism, nationalism, and globalization.
READINGS
Thiele, Leslie Paul (2004). Thinking Politics: Perspectives in Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern Political Theory, 2nd edition. New York, London: Chatham House Publisher.
Wiser, James (1993). Political Theory: A thematic Inquiry. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Love, Nancy S. (2006). Understanding Dogmas & Dreams: A Text, 2nd edition. Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
Love, Nancy S. ed. (2006). Dogmas & Dreams: A Reader in Modern Political Ideologies, 3rd edition. Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
ASSIGNMENTS AND EXAMS
All the assignments and exams for this class will be take-home. In the first half of the semester, there will be two take-home quizzes another one will be in the second part of the semester. The aim of these quizzes will be to assure that the readings have been done and the students are following the pace of the course. They will be assigned on Friday and will be due the following Monday. Each will count 10% of your final grade. The format of the quizzes will be as follows: You will receive 10 questions and need to answer only 5 of them for achieving the maximum evaluation. However, extra credits will be assigned to those who work on the rest of the questions. The questions will be such that a 200-words answer would be necessary to complete each of them.
A take-home midterm exam will be assigned according to the schedule mentioned in the syllabus. It counts 20% of your final grade. Its structure would be as follows: The exam is identical to the quizzes, except for the fact that the questions will be formatted in a way that would require 500 words rather than 200 words. You will receive an exam sheet with 10 questions where 5 answers will count as regular answers and any other answer on the top of them will be counted for extra credit evaluation.
A 2500-word essay is due according to the date scheduled in this syllabus. You will be asked to develop an essay about a concept or notion discussed in class. The subject-matter will be randomly chosen from a bowl as mentioned in the syllabus. The essay’s evaluation counts 20% of your final grade.
The final exam’s format will be identical in format and evaluation with the mid-term exam.
EXTRA CREDITS
You will continuously be encouraged to perform extra work in order for you to score some extra grades and shield yourselves from unhappy but probable setbacks in the final grade. I will often come to you with propositions for extra grades. Yet, your propositions for extra credit assignments will be welcomed.
EVALUATION
I especially evaluate the class attendance; it comes from my graduate school experience that the class is the best place to learn. Moreover, you have to write two take-home exams, one in the mid-term and the other during finals week. And finally, an essay will be required before you take your final exam. So, the evaluation will be as follows:
1. Class attendance and participation 10%
2. Quizzes 30%
3. Midterm 20%
4. Essay 20%
5. Final exam 20%
However, the letter grades will appear only in your transcripts, while this course’s grading will be in numerical grades. Following is the relationship between numerical grades and letter grades:
100-91 = A
90-81 = B
80-71 = C
70-61 = D
60-0 = E
EVALUATION CRITERIA
In evaluating your assignments, I will use these criteria:
1) How much you have answered the question and tackling the issue;
2) How much you have used class discussion in answering the question and discussing the issue;
3) How much you have used the textbooks and other assigned readings in answering the question and tackling the issue;
4) The language style and grammatical correctness.Assignment structural organization.
CLASS ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION
An enrollment appeal will be conducted in the beginning of each class. You are allowed to have two unjustified absence. After a third, you need to talk to me and present a valid reason of for the absence. Here is what the UK attendance policy suggests about the excused absences:
Excused Absences: S.R. 5.2.4.2 defines the following as acceptable reasons for excused absences:
1) serious illness;
2) illness or death of family member;
3) University-related trips;
4) major religious holidays;
5) other circumstances you find to be “reasonable cause for nonattendance.”
I recognize that there might be other cases to be considered, outside of the aforementioned ones. Yet, you need to talk to me concerning each of them.
CHEATING AND PLAGIARISM
Those who have taken my courses before might have noticed that I don’t stress much on this point. The reason for this negligence is that I was never able to realize why a student should cheat and/or plagiarize. For those who don’t know what plagiarism means, I suggest the following link: http://www.uky.edu/Ombud/Plagiarism.pdf; for those who don’t know what cheating means, I suggest to take the course Life 101. I do my best to provide you with all the facilities and ease needed for mastering the class material.
However, unfortunately, sometimes cheating and plagiarism happens. In order to prevent and combat these ugly and unlawful phenomena, the UK has a distinct policy that you can find at: http://www.uky.edu/USC/New/SenateRulesMain.htm andhttp://www.uky.edu/Ombud/. I am deeply committed to this policy.
TOPICS AND SCHEDULE
PART ONE: THE PURPOSE AND METHOD OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Week 1: January 9, and 11.
Thinking Politics: Thiele, Chapter 1; Wiser, Chapters 1 and 2.
Week 2: January 14, 16 and 18.
Human nature: Thiele Chapter 2; Wiser, Chapters 4 and 5;
Week 3: January 21, 23 and 25.
Politics: Thiele, Chapter 3; Wiser, Chapters 10 and 11.
Week 4: January 28 and 30, and February 1.
Modernity and Postmodernity: Thiele, Chapter 4.
Week 5: February 4, 6, and 8.
Human conflict: Thiele, Chapter 5; Wiser, Chapter 6.
Week 6: 18, 20, and 22.
Statecraft: Thiele, Chapter 6; Wiser, Chapters 7, 8, and 9.
PART 2: POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
Week 7: February 25, 27, and 29.
Defining Political Ideology: Love, Chapter 1; Thiele, Chapter 7.
Week 8: March 3, and 5.
Liberalism: Love, Chapter 2; Love (reading), Part 1.
On March 5th you will receive your midterm exam sheet. It will be due the first day of class after the Spring break, Monday, March 17. You will also randomly pick from a bowl the topic of your essay; the essay is due on April 25th.
Week 9: March 17, 19, and 21.
Conservatism: Love, Chapter 3; Love (reading), Part 2.
Week 10: March 24, 26 and 28.
Socialism: Love, Chapter 4; Love (reading), Part 3.
Week 11: March 31, and April 2 and 4.
Anarchism and Fascism: Love, Chapter 5 and 6; Love (reading), Part 4 and 5.
Week 12: April 7, 9 and 11.
Feminism: Love, Chapter 7; Love (reading), Part 6.
Week 13: April 14, 16, and 18.
Environmentalism and Ecology: Love, Chapter 8; Love (reading), Part 7.
Week 14: April 21, 23, and 25.
Nationalism and Globalization: Love, Chapter 9 Love (reading), Part 8.
On April 25th you will receive your final exam sheet. It is due on May 2nd.
Have a great semester!
Department of Political Science
University of Kentucky
16th floor, Patterson Office Tower
Tel: 859-257-7929
Class schedule: Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 2.00-2.50 p.m.
Location: 233 CB.
Office hours and location: Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 1.00-2.00., 1651 POT. For students who, for emergency reasons or schedule clashes, cannot visit me in the scheduled office hours, arranging an appointment is recommended. You can do it by communicating with me via email.
E-mail address: ridvanpeshkopia@yahoo.com
Blog address: introtopoliticaltheory.blogspot.com
WELCOME TO POLITICAL THEORY! COURSE’S OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTATIONS
This course is divided in two parts: the first one focuses on political thought; the second, on political ideology.
Political thought. One can hardly find any other college course where the word knowledge in its classical meaning can be more appropriately used to describe the subject-matter than what political theory/philosophy tries to deal with. By touching base with the best of the political thought humanity has been able to conceive thus far, we will receive a basic understanding of how human society in general and politics in particular work. We will have an opportunity to analyze what the individual, the community and the state are and how they act and interact in building and consuming politics. Yet, in order to fully grasp such basic knowledge, we will need and learn some basic philosophical concepts that go beyond political philosophy and are applied in other realms of knowledge such as pure and applied science, and ethics. These concepts include theory (a modelic presentation of the world), epistemology (theory of knowledge), ontology (theory of existence), empiricism (theory of proof), metaphysics (theory of thought), and criticism (theory of criticism). From that string of knowledge, in the end of the semester you are expected to have mastered notions such as individual, private, public, community, state, freedom, modernity, and postmodernity.
Political ideology. Political ideology is often an application of the political thought. We can refer to this part of the course as an implementation of what we learned in the first part of it. Clearly the world does not work in such a simplistic way but hey, perhaps we are building a model here. Anyway, let us even formally build this course as a simplified mirror of the real world. Certainly many details will be left out, but this is a price to pay for grasping a wider and more complete view of the world in only one semester. This section of the course probes in some ideological notions such as liberalism, conservatism, communism, fascism, anarchism, feminism, nationalism, and globalization.
READINGS
Thiele, Leslie Paul (2004). Thinking Politics: Perspectives in Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern Political Theory, 2nd edition. New York, London: Chatham House Publisher.
Wiser, James (1993). Political Theory: A thematic Inquiry. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Love, Nancy S. (2006). Understanding Dogmas & Dreams: A Text, 2nd edition. Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
Love, Nancy S. ed. (2006). Dogmas & Dreams: A Reader in Modern Political Ideologies, 3rd edition. Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
ASSIGNMENTS AND EXAMS
All the assignments and exams for this class will be take-home. In the first half of the semester, there will be two take-home quizzes another one will be in the second part of the semester. The aim of these quizzes will be to assure that the readings have been done and the students are following the pace of the course. They will be assigned on Friday and will be due the following Monday. Each will count 10% of your final grade. The format of the quizzes will be as follows: You will receive 10 questions and need to answer only 5 of them for achieving the maximum evaluation. However, extra credits will be assigned to those who work on the rest of the questions. The questions will be such that a 200-words answer would be necessary to complete each of them.
A take-home midterm exam will be assigned according to the schedule mentioned in the syllabus. It counts 20% of your final grade. Its structure would be as follows: The exam is identical to the quizzes, except for the fact that the questions will be formatted in a way that would require 500 words rather than 200 words. You will receive an exam sheet with 10 questions where 5 answers will count as regular answers and any other answer on the top of them will be counted for extra credit evaluation.
A 2500-word essay is due according to the date scheduled in this syllabus. You will be asked to develop an essay about a concept or notion discussed in class. The subject-matter will be randomly chosen from a bowl as mentioned in the syllabus. The essay’s evaluation counts 20% of your final grade.
The final exam’s format will be identical in format and evaluation with the mid-term exam.
EXTRA CREDITS
You will continuously be encouraged to perform extra work in order for you to score some extra grades and shield yourselves from unhappy but probable setbacks in the final grade. I will often come to you with propositions for extra grades. Yet, your propositions for extra credit assignments will be welcomed.
EVALUATION
I especially evaluate the class attendance; it comes from my graduate school experience that the class is the best place to learn. Moreover, you have to write two take-home exams, one in the mid-term and the other during finals week. And finally, an essay will be required before you take your final exam. So, the evaluation will be as follows:
1. Class attendance and participation 10%
2. Quizzes 30%
3. Midterm 20%
4. Essay 20%
5. Final exam 20%
However, the letter grades will appear only in your transcripts, while this course’s grading will be in numerical grades. Following is the relationship between numerical grades and letter grades:
100-91 = A
90-81 = B
80-71 = C
70-61 = D
60-0 = E
EVALUATION CRITERIA
In evaluating your assignments, I will use these criteria:
1) How much you have answered the question and tackling the issue;
2) How much you have used class discussion in answering the question and discussing the issue;
3) How much you have used the textbooks and other assigned readings in answering the question and tackling the issue;
4) The language style and grammatical correctness.Assignment structural organization.
CLASS ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION
An enrollment appeal will be conducted in the beginning of each class. You are allowed to have two unjustified absence. After a third, you need to talk to me and present a valid reason of for the absence. Here is what the UK attendance policy suggests about the excused absences:
Excused Absences: S.R. 5.2.4.2 defines the following as acceptable reasons for excused absences:
1) serious illness;
2) illness or death of family member;
3) University-related trips;
4) major religious holidays;
5) other circumstances you find to be “reasonable cause for nonattendance.”
I recognize that there might be other cases to be considered, outside of the aforementioned ones. Yet, you need to talk to me concerning each of them.
CHEATING AND PLAGIARISM
Those who have taken my courses before might have noticed that I don’t stress much on this point. The reason for this negligence is that I was never able to realize why a student should cheat and/or plagiarize. For those who don’t know what plagiarism means, I suggest the following link: http://www.uky.edu/Ombud/Plagiarism.pdf; for those who don’t know what cheating means, I suggest to take the course Life 101. I do my best to provide you with all the facilities and ease needed for mastering the class material.
However, unfortunately, sometimes cheating and plagiarism happens. In order to prevent and combat these ugly and unlawful phenomena, the UK has a distinct policy that you can find at: http://www.uky.edu/USC/New/SenateRulesMain.htm andhttp://www.uky.edu/Ombud/. I am deeply committed to this policy.
TOPICS AND SCHEDULE
PART ONE: THE PURPOSE AND METHOD OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Week 1: January 9, and 11.
Thinking Politics: Thiele, Chapter 1; Wiser, Chapters 1 and 2.
Week 2: January 14, 16 and 18.
Human nature: Thiele Chapter 2; Wiser, Chapters 4 and 5;
Week 3: January 21, 23 and 25.
Politics: Thiele, Chapter 3; Wiser, Chapters 10 and 11.
Week 4: January 28 and 30, and February 1.
Modernity and Postmodernity: Thiele, Chapter 4.
Week 5: February 4, 6, and 8.
Human conflict: Thiele, Chapter 5; Wiser, Chapter 6.
Week 6: 18, 20, and 22.
Statecraft: Thiele, Chapter 6; Wiser, Chapters 7, 8, and 9.
PART 2: POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
Week 7: February 25, 27, and 29.
Defining Political Ideology: Love, Chapter 1; Thiele, Chapter 7.
Week 8: March 3, and 5.
Liberalism: Love, Chapter 2; Love (reading), Part 1.
On March 5th you will receive your midterm exam sheet. It will be due the first day of class after the Spring break, Monday, March 17. You will also randomly pick from a bowl the topic of your essay; the essay is due on April 25th.
Week 9: March 17, 19, and 21.
Conservatism: Love, Chapter 3; Love (reading), Part 2.
Week 10: March 24, 26 and 28.
Socialism: Love, Chapter 4; Love (reading), Part 3.
Week 11: March 31, and April 2 and 4.
Anarchism and Fascism: Love, Chapter 5 and 6; Love (reading), Part 4 and 5.
Week 12: April 7, 9 and 11.
Feminism: Love, Chapter 7; Love (reading), Part 6.
Week 13: April 14, 16, and 18.
Environmentalism and Ecology: Love, Chapter 8; Love (reading), Part 7.
Week 14: April 21, 23, and 25.
Nationalism and Globalization: Love, Chapter 9 Love (reading), Part 8.
On April 25th you will receive your final exam sheet. It is due on May 2nd.
Have a great semester!
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