williams college political science course catalog

Political dissent has taken various forms since 1979 but the regime has found ways to repress and divert it. [more], Waste is not just a fact of life, it is a political practice. The seminar will examine: original source materials; academic/popular interpretations and representations of the BPP; hagiography; iconography; political rebellion, political theory. Assignments focus on crafting solutions to contemporary political challenges in the developing world. 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. This course interrogates the many perils that pundits and activists tell us we should worry about in 21st century America. Finally, what are the costs of change (and of continuity)--and who pays them? International law is similar to domestic law, with one very crucial difference: it is not enforced by a centralized, sovereign state. What form of government best serves the people? Wars and assassinations. race, class, gender, disability, indigenous, queer, subaltern); and 3) exploring the implications of a more inclusive approach to International Relations, both within the classroom as well as contemporary decolonization movements in the US and around the world. Near the end of the semester, students will receive feedback on their complete draft from their advisor and two additional faculty readers selected by the workshop leader; following revisions, the final work--a roughly 35 page piece of original scholarship--will be submitted to and evaluated by a committee of faculty chosen by the department for the awarding of honors as well as presented publicly to the departmental community at an end-of-year collective symposium. and dominant media companies (Google, FaceBook, CNN, FOX, etc.). 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. But is anyone immune to media influence? defeat of Nazi Germany? [more], Must we choose between "socialism or barbarism?" It begins by addressing the arrival of Zionists, the pursuit of statehood and the in-gathering of Jews, and the responses of neighboring Arab states and local Palestinians. A primary goal of the course is to provide students with the intellectual resources to decipher problems central to philosophical discourse and to allow students an opportunity to apply what they learn to critical issues in current geopolitics. the people. Will Japan continue to live as a nation with enormous economic power but limited military means? Program Admission Requirements. 'duped' by 'biased' sources of information on crucial issues like war, elections, sexuality, racism, and history. Looking at but also beyond his political solidarity with the emancipatory movements of the 1960s, we will then consider how Marcuse's work can be placed in conversation with more recent critical theory, including ideas emerging from the Occupy Wall Street movement and feminist approaches to aesthetics and psychoanalytic theory. justice and civil rights. What is "objectivity" anyway, and how has this norm changed through history? What types of institutions, dynamics, and processes animate American political life in the twenty-first century? It then considers how nationalism is manifest in the contemporary politics and foreign relations of China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea and Taiwan. that used to be the prerogative of human actors. Does it reflect increased inequality in a fast-changing global economy? As a social science, the study of politics considers both the dynamics and ethics of power, which in turn involves conceptions of community, identity, justice, and citizenship. It considers several themes, including the slow emergence of a stable national state and the interplay between politics and economic change. This tutorial will intensively examine Wilson's efforts to recast the nature of the international system, the American rejection of his vision after the First World War, and the reshaping of Wilsonianism after the Second World War. After considering explanations of the rise of the left and assessments of its performance in power, we end our common readings by asking what it might mean today to be on the left in Latin America--or anywhere--both in policy and political terms. How can it be established and secured? But there are other examples of treating the body as property that seem more ambiguous, or even benign: the employment contract in which bodily services are offered in exchange for payment; the feminist slogan "my body, my choice"; or even the every-day transfer of bodily properties into creative projects that then become part of the things people own --- chairs, tables, houses, music, art, and intellectual property. This course will examine how New Yorkers have contested core issues of capitalism and democracy-how those contests have played out as the city itself has changed and how they have shaped contemporary New York. Power may be used wisely or foolishly, rightly or cruelly, but it is always there; it cannot be wished away. If so, should it be Hebrew or Yiddish? As Louis Menand argues, "almost everything in the popular understanding of Orwell is a distortion of what he really thought and the kind of writer he was." What do disadvantaged interests do in light of these power dynamics? Along the way, we will consider a number of longstanding questions in the study of politics, such as: is the public rational? Course cap: 19 Broad themes will include the city's role as a showcase for neoliberalism, neoconservatism, technocratic centrism, and progressivism; the politics of race, immigration, and belonging; the relation of city, state, and national governments; and the sources of contemporary forms of inequality. In the United States, basic stability and democratic expansion have been accompanied by increasing citizen distrust of institutions, growing social divisions, contestation over basic citizenship rights, and political violence. This course will investigate this debate over parties by examining their nature and role in American political life, both past and present. How should we respond to the fact that these unbearable beings persist in existing, despite our best efforts to eliminate them? Is it manufactured by a political elite using the rules of the game to maintain power while ignoring the concerns of the people? 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. While the course will focus primarily on the United States, our conceptual framework will be global; though our main interest will be contemporary, we will also examine previous eras in which democratic leadership has come under great pressure. Are these conflicts related, and if so, how? Why do we end up with some policies but not others? 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], This introductory seminar investigates the relationship between three major schools of thought in contemporary Africana social and political philosophy: the African, Afro-North American, and Afro-Caribbean intellectual traditions. We will study past campaigns and then research and discuss contemporary reform efforts. We will assess traditional theories about the weakness of the American state in light of arguments about the state as: regulator of family and "private" life, adjudicator of relations between racial and ethnic groups, manager of economic inequalities, insurer of security, and arbiter of the acceptable uses of violence and surveillance. Political Science Do East Asian countries seek security and prosperity in a way fundamentally different from the Western system? But their worth is a continuing subject of debate. In this research seminar we revisit the debate on the relationship between mineral wealth and development, focusing on the factors and conditions that lead some resource rich countries to fail and others to succeed. What kinds of regimes best serve to encourage good leaders and to constrain bad ones? Students will read and analyze texts, screen documentaries, collectively compile a comprehensive bibliography, and present group analyses. Might developments in artificial intelligence transform our sense of the human or even threaten the species? What are the primary causes of war and conflict? How did we get to this point and what does the future hold? [more], Although many people have described America as inclusive, political debates about belonging have often been contentious and hard-fought. Can the framers' vision of deliberative, representative government meet the challenges of a polarized polity? First, it will consider the the terms of American foreign policy after the Cold War, how it sets these, and continuities and discontinuities between the Clinton and Bush administrations. It may be tempting to conclude from these similarities--as some recent commentators have--that we are witnessing the return of "totalitarianism" as Arendt understood it. speculative accounts in the Western tradition draw boundaries between past and present, as well as between self and other. Humanitarianism aims at rescue, striving to keep marginal people alive until some solution can be found. It will pay particular attention to the ANC and corruption, and it will address why, thus far, the ANC has won national elections handily amidst growing dissatisfaction with overt and pervasive official corruption and misgovernment and the role racial solidarities and memories play in sustaining the ANC in office. They also have produced attempts by both internal and external actors to resolve the issues. Mackie, Marx, Nietzsche, and Max Weber. We will begin with an analysis of primary texts by Fanon and end by considering how Fanon has been interpreted by his contemporaries as well as activists and critical theorists writing today. And how will the unfolding pandemic change how we respond to these stories? Senior Seminar: The Liberal Project in International Relations. and 3) What are strategies to counteract backsliding when it occurs? Do concerns about information security alter states' most basic political calculations? [more], We all want to be free--at least most of us say we do. The course covers the creation of the states of modern South Asia, partition and independence, democratization, electoral politics and political parties, economic and social development, ethnic identity and conflict, and the contemporary regional challenges of democratic backsliding and climate change. Our examination of intellectuals and activists, with their explicit and implicit engagements with Wynter, shall facilitate assessing the possibilities, challenges, and visions of black living. Who should rule? The course concludes by considering what policies could be appropriate for supporting, while also regulating, the tech sector in the twenty-first century. Is America really a democracy at all? They help us ask: What is freedom? Senior Seminar in American Politics: The Politics of Belonging. 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. 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. Illustrative cases to aid our inquiry will be drawn primarily from the USA and Canada, with additional examples from India, South Africa, and possibly European law. And what does it mean to study this richly diverse region? Optimists counter that, even if individuals are often ignorant and/or confused about politics, in the aggregate, the public sends a coherent signal to public officials, who usually carry out the public's general wishes. This course investigates the historical and contemporary relationship between culture and economics, religion and capitalism, in their most encompassing forms. Does it matter? What is at stake, and what do different groups believe to be at stake? things that happen in and around the political world--are often underestimated as catalysts of political change. [more], The black radical tradition is a modern tradition of thought and action begun after transatlantic slavery's advent. will begin by surveying institutional constraints confronting contemporary political leaders: globalization, sclerotic institutions, polarization, endemic racism, and a changing media environment, among others. What produces political change? In addition to those who argue for an expanded and emancipatory conception of politics, we will consider arguments against politics as primary path to improvement or focus of commitment. 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. DuBois, Frantz Fanon, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Ella Baker and contemporary theorists like Saidiya Hartman, Charles Mills, bell hooks, and Frank Wilderson--among others. [more], Politics as usual. Particular attention will be given to the modern liberal tradition and its critics. 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. After considering explanations of the rise of the left and assessments of its performance in power, we end our common readings by asking what it might mean today to be on the left in Latin America--or anywhere--both in policy and political terms. 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. [more], It is hard to overstate the enduring influence of George Orwell on political discourse in the 20th century and beyond. Despite the importance of notions of power across the social sciences, there is a broad lack of consensus. [more], Political Science independent study. Yet, law is still where we look for justice and, perhaps, for power to be tamed by the pressure to be legitimate. Serious inquiry into waste is rare in political theory and political science--perhaps understandably, given that the study of politics is shaped by the same taboos that shape politics. This course examines contemporary problems in political economy at and across diverse spatial scales. Is "religion" good or necessary for democratic societies? Most of the course will focus on the historical and contemporary relations between whites and African Americans, but we will also explore topics involving other pan-ethnic communities, particularly Latinos and Asian Americans. Class will be driven primarily by discussion. Contemporary social science and the humanities overwhelmingly portray it as a critique of black politics in the latter's liberal, libertarian, and conservative forms. 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. It seeks to challenge the widespread image of African politics as universally and inexplicably lawless, violent, and anarchic. As a final assignment, students will write an 18-20 page research paper on a topic of their choice related to the core themes of the course. How is property defined, and how far should law go to erode or reinforce distinctions between property and humanity? Should they, perhaps, abandon Europe altogether and re-constitute themselves elsewhere? Two questions will anchor the tutorial: how is the nation defined and what, if any, class interests are folded into various definitions? Is it what we really want? 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. Moving from the emergence of cybernetics during World War II through such contemporary examples as facial recognition software, this seminar approaches algorithms as complex technological artifacts that have social histories and political effects. [more], The comparative study of politics looks mainly at what goes on inside countries, the domestic dynamics of power, institutions, and identities. And how will the unfolding pandemic change how we respond to these stories? If so, should they focus their efforts on relocation to the historical land of Israel? Cuba, US, Africa, and Resistance to Black Enslavement, 1791-1991. country's birth rate is at an all-time low. What functions does leadership fill, and what challenges do leaders face, in modern democratic states? Or should feminists reject objectivity as a myth told by the powerful about their own knowledge-claims and develop an alternative approach to knowledge? Our focus is on rights and liberties -- freedom of speech and religion, property, criminal process, autonomy and privacy, and equality. Does power obey laws? Do certain kinds of processes yield better policies than others? A phenomenal strategy? incarceration, and failing public services-social problems borne primarily by people of color. Who should rule? Was his caution warranted? We will then examine their experiences as strategists and policymakers during the most crucial moments of the Cold War. What do Americans want from their political leaders?". The course is organized with a focus on legal status: which "categories" of people (i.e. life -- define the American political tradition and consume the American political imagination. If so, should they focus their efforts on relocation to the historical land of Israel? Second, was one side primarily responsible for the length and intensity of the Cold War in Europe?
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