ASTK12131U Approaches to Political Theory

Volume 2013/2014
Content

What is political theory? How do we study political theory? How can we theorize about politics? What is tolerance and is it always a good thing? What is discourse and how and why study it? Why does it matter how equally the goods are distributed in society? Why do citizens have an obligation to obey democratically enacted laws, even when they find them unjust? What is public reason and which role should it play in a democratic society? Questions like these constitute the discipline of political theory, but there are no unison answers. Rather, political theory is in itself a pluralistic discipline with several approaches to the constitutive and core questions of the discipline. Taking this point of departure, this core course in the M.Sc.-specialization in Political Theory will focus on four dominant approaches to political theory and the characteristic issues addressed in them. The four selected approaches are (with a few representative names):

  1. Historical Approaches (Skinner, Pocock, Freeden, Koselleck, Rosanvallon etc.)
  2. Critical Theory (Habermas, Honneth, Fraser, Forst, Benhabib, etc.)
  3. Post-structuralism (Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Badiou, Rancière etc.)
  4. Analytical political philosophy (Rawls, Miller, Pogge, G. A. Cohen, Dworkin, Nussbaum, Sen, etc.)

 

From the point of view of these approaches, the core course will study some substantive debates in political theory , where two or more of the approaches are arguing for different perspectives and standpoints. We have selected six themes: 1) history and politics, 2) ideology and discourse, 3) justice, 4) democracy, 5) public reason, and 6) tolerance. These six themes will be studied by reading crucial texts by authors from the different approaches.

 

Thus, the aim of the course is to give the student an advanced understanding both of the four approaches and the core concepts and issues discussed in contemporary political theory. Furthermore, the course forms the necessary background knowledge for the optional courses in the M.Sc.-specialization in Political Theory.

Learning Outcome

The students are expected to learn to

  • Present different approaches to political theory
     
  • Apply different approaches to political theory to core issues such as ideology, democracy tolerance, and justice
     
  • Compare and analyze different approaches to political theory
     
  • Combine and synthesise different approaches to political theory
     
  • Evaluate the different normative arguments and theories regarding core themes in political theory
Literature

Anderson, Elizabeth. "What is the Point of Equality?", Ethics 109, no. 2 (1999): 287-337 [51 pp.]

Brown, Wendy. Regulating Aversion. Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Cohen, Joshua. “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy,” in Deliberati­ve Democracy. Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. J. Bohman and W. Rehg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), 67-92.

Dworkin, Ronald. "What is Equality? II. Equality of Resources," Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981): 283-345 (53 pp.]

Forst, Rainer. “The Limits of Toleration,” Constellations, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2004), 312-325.

Forst, Rainer. “A critical theory of multicultural toleration,” in Anthony Simon Laden & David Owen, eds., Multiculturalism and Political Theory. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 292-311.

Fraser, Nancy and Axel Honneth. Redistribution or Recognition: A Political-Philosophical Exchange. London: Verso, 2003.

Freeden, Michael. “What Should the “Political” in Political Theory Explore?”, Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2005), 113-34.

Freeden, Michael. “Thinking Politically and Thinking about Politics: Language, Interpretation, and Ideology”, in David Leopold and Marc Stears (eds.) Political Theory: Methods and Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 196-215.

Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow, New York: Pantheon Books (1984), 76-100.

Gray, John. “Pluralism and Toleration in Contemporary Political Philosophy,” Political Studies, Vol. 48 (2000), 323-333.

Habermas, Jürgen. ”Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification,” in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. C. Lenhardt and S. Weber Nicholsen (Cambrid­ge: Polity Press, 1990), 43-115.

Habermas, Jürgen. “Reconciliation through the Public Use of Reason,” in The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory, ed. C. Cronin and P. De Greiff (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998), 49-74.

Habermas, Jürgen. “’Reasonable’ versus ’True,’ or the Morality of Worldviews”, in The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory, ed. C. Ciaron and P. De Greiff (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998), 75-101.

Honig, Bonnie. “Between Decision and Deliberation: Political Paradox in Democratic Theory,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 101, No. 1 (2007), 1-17.

Jones, Peter. “Toleration, Value-Pluralism, and the Fact of Pluralism,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2006), 189-210.

Norval, Aletta. “The Things We Do with Words: Contemporary Approaches to the Analysis of Ideology,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2000), 313-346.

Rawls, John. Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

Rawls, John. “Reply to Habermas”, Journal of Philosophy XCII (1995): 132-80.

Skinner, Quentin. “A Genealogy of the Modern State,” Proceedings of the British Academy 162: 325-370.

Vincent, Andrew. The Nature of Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

B.Sc.-courses in political theory. An interest in theoretical and philosophical modes of thinking about politics. The course is obligatory for students taking the specialization in Political Theory, but it is also open for other students.
Lectures by the instructors and class discussions. Students are expected to have done all the readings before class and to participate actively in class room discussions.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 28
  • Exam
  • 79
  • Preparation
  • 168
  • Total
  • 275
Credit
10 ECTS
Type of assessment
Oral examination
An oral exam based on a synopsis written by the student
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Criteria for exam assesment
  • Grade 12 is given for an outstanding performance: the student lives up to the course’s goal description in an independent and convincing manner with no or few and minor shortcomings
     
  • Grade 7 given for a good performance: the student is confidently able to live up to the goal description, albeit with several shortcomings
     
  • Grade 02 is given for an adequate performance: the minimum acceptable performance in which the student is only able to live up to the goal description in an insecure and incomplete manner