Winter 2003

This information effective for Winter 2003. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Politics

[POLI-001] [POLI-172] [POLI-190G] [POLI-190X]

1. Politics: Power and Principle

Winter 2003
Instructor: Daniel Wirls

Course Description:

This course provides a systematic introduction to the nature and study of politics and government. Organized around the dynamic relationship between power (who controls what and how) and principle (ideas of right and wrong, justice and injustice), this course provides an overview of the historical and contemporary nature of politics. The interactions among government, laws, and societies are explored at the national and international level. Topics include the nature of democracy, civil liberties and rights, governmental institutions, war and conflict, and global politics.

172. Politics of the Internet

Winter 2003
Instructor: Bruce Larkin

Course Description:

To view full syllabus, go to:

http://www.learnworld.com/COURSES/P172/P172.Syllabus.html

190G. Issues in International Law: Human Rights

Winter 2003
Instructor: Isebill Gruhn

Course Description:

An advanced research seminar. The first half of the quarter will be spent in collective reading and discussion of Henry Steiner and Philip Alston's International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals. During the second half of the quarter, seminar participants will present oral reports on their research. Each student will select a research topic in consultation with the instructor, will make an oral report on an assigned date, and will submit a draft of the research paper by week seven and a final paper 20-35 pages in length the last day of class. Seminar participants will be given reading assignments from appropriate sections of the course text prior to each oral report by the report giver. Seminar participants must attend all seminar sessions (exceptions: doctor certified medical excuses). Participants will be graded on their research paper and their seminar participation.

190X. Global Civil Society—Theories, Debates, Practices

Instructor: Ronnie Lipschutz
This is a 5-unit class

Course Description:

The process of globalization, the enormous growth in numbers of transnational social movements and non-governmental organizations, and the broad reach of transnational capital and corporations have generated considerable academic and policy interest in the future of global governance and the role of "global civil society" in it. Some scholars and practitioners believe that global civil society is an instrumental force in the construction of global regulation; others see it as a bourgeois fetishization that sustains liberalism and helps to spread it around the world. This senior seminar provides a broad view of the theory and debates behind global civil society and case studies of specific transnational networks, movements, and coalitions. Students will be expected to prepare a 20-25 page senior paper that examines a particular issue area and those actors involved in it and to link it with one of the theoretical perspectives discussed in the course readings.

Assigned texts

• Margaret Keck & Kathryn Sikkink, Activists across Borders (Cornell, 1998)
  
• Paul Wapner, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (SUNY, 1996).
  
• Sidney Tarrow, Power in movement: social movements and contentious politics (Cambridge, 1998, 2nd ed.)
  
• Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius & Mary Kaldor, eds., Global Civil Society 2001 (Oxford, 2001)
  
• David Korten, Globalizing Civil Society (Seven Stories Press, 1999)
  
• Michael Walzer, ed., Toward a Global Civil Society (Berghan, 1995)
  
• Chris Hann & Elizabeth Dunn, eds., Civil Society—Challenging Western Models (Routledge, 1996).
  
• Alejandro Colas, International Civil Society (Polity, 2002)
  

Course Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction

Ronnie Lipschutz, "Reconstructing World Politics: The Emergence of Global Civil Society," Millennium, Winter 1992-93.

Week 2: Defining civil society

Civil Society 2001, Part I
Walzer, Part I
Readings from G.W.F. Hegel, John Locke, Karl Marx

Week 3: Theory I—Global civil society and global liberalism

Walzer, Part III
Lipschutz, "Who you calling hegemonic? Or, what kind of democracy do you want with those markets?"
Hann & Dunn, ch. 1-2

Week 4: Theory II—Global civil society and global progressivism

Wapner, ch. 1-2
Keck & Sikkink, ch. 1-2

Week 5: Debates I—There is global civil society

Walzer, Part IV
Global Civil Society 2000, Part III
Keck & Sikkink, ch. 2
Korten

Week 6: Debates II—There is civil society, but it isn't always civil or global

Walzer, Part II
Hann & Dunn, ch. 7-11
Tarrow

Week 7: Case studies I—Global civil society and the end of socialism

Walzer, Part V
Hann & Dunn, ch. 3-6
Ronnie Lipschutz, "Environmentalism in One Country? Global Civil Society and Nature in Hungary," in Ronnie Lipschutz, Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Governance (SUNY, 1996).

Week 8: Case studies II—Global civil society and transnational regulation

Global Civil Society 2000, Part II
Keck & Sikkink, ch. 3-5
Wapner, ch. 3-7
Ronnie Lipschutz, excerpts from book-in-progress, Regulation for the Rest of Us?

Week 9: Reflections on the evidence

Keck & Sikkink, ch. 6
Wapner, ch. 8
Tarrow, conclusion
Lipschutz, excerpts from Regulation for the Rest of Us?

Week 10: Student presentations