Contemporary Political Thought

courses:Contemporary Political Thought
Political Science 2113, Fall 2004

Jeffrey Alan Johnson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Department of History and Government

In the 1960s Isaiah Berlin asked, "Does Political Theory Still Exist?" Today myriad theories attest to political philosophy's survival but also to its incoherence. This course brings order to the chaos by studying key works that establish the core questions in contemporary political philosophy: the relationship between philosophy today and the history of political thought (through Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt), the nature of justice (as explored by John Rawls and Iris Marion Young), and the character of politics in a post-modern world (as developed by Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben). This course is not recommended for students with no previous exposure to either philosophy, social and political theory, or literary theory of some sort.

Course Overview

Course Policies
Students are responsible for complying with all course policies. General course policies are described in the "General Course Policies" document. Policies specific to this course are described below. Both are also available at my web site. All policies and schedules are provisional, and are subject to addition, deletion, change, or waiver with or without notice when, in the sole judgment of the instructor, doing so would further the educational goals of the course. Where these policies conflict with university regulations, those regulations prevail.

REGISTRATION FOR THIS COURSE CONSTITUTES YOUR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF AND CONSENT TO THESE POLICIES.

Course Objectives
In addition to the objectives stated in general course policies, students who successfully complete this course will have achieved the following.

Students will critically understand the core works guiding the main research traditions in contemporary political philosophy.
Students will demonstrate their ability to conduct independent research within one of the major traditions in contemporary political philosophy.

Assignments and Evaluation
The primary assignment for this course will be a research paper. The paper will demand an original argument analyzing a problem in contemporary political practice from the perspective of one of the major traditions in contemporary political philosophy. The paper must go beyond the central text studied to include other important works in the tradition. Students must complete several intermediate steps (as noted in the course schedule), which will be evaluated informally (i.e., comments but not letter grades) and comment formally on one other student's paper. The final draft of the paper will be due at the scheduled time of the final exam.

While this course is not recommended for students who have no prior study of political thought, philosophy, or social theory, the reality of course scheduling is that most students will not have another opportunity to take this course. To make the course manageable for such students, students who have not taken previous courses in related disciplines may choose to write three essays of six to eight pages critically evaluating the thinkers that we study in this course. The first essay essay should provide an overview of the argument of either Strauss or Arendt. The second should give a critical evaluation (i.e., identifying its strengths and weaknesses) of either Rawls or Young. The third should develop an application of the argument of either Foucault or Agamben to an issue in contemporary political practice. The first and second essays are due one week from the conclusion of the authors in question; the third is due at the scheduled time of the final exam.

Students will also be evaluated on the basis of their participation in class, discussion preparation, and intermediate steps in the research paper. This class will meet as a seminar, meaning that most class meetings will be an open discussion of the assigned readings. For each class, each student will be expected to have prepared in advance comments, questions, criticisms, or other material to discuss. Participation and other assignments will be evaluated informally then graded on a curve. Quizzes will ask you to analyze a particular question after class discussion; they are primarily a way to provide feedback on your understanding of the course material.

Standards for the timely completion and evaluation of all assignments are included in the general course policies. The research paper will be worth 75% of the course grade; other assignments will be worth 25%. For students who complete the critical essays, each essay is worth 30% of the course grade, and class participation and discussion is worth 10%.

Readings
The required textbooks are available through the college bookstore and the usual online sources. Students should purchase the following texts:

Agamben, Giorgio. State of Exception (University of Chicago Press, 2005). ISBN: 0226009256.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1998). ISBN: 0226025985
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Vintage, 1995). ISBN: 0679752552.
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Belknap Press, 1999). ISBN: 0674000781.
Strauss, Leo. Natural Right and History (University of Chicago Press, 1965). ISBN: 0226776948
Young, Iris Marion. Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton Univ. Press, 1990). ISBN: 0691023158.

Course Schedule

22-Aug: Introduction. No reading

I. The History of Political Thought in the Contemporary World
24-Aug: Strauss: Historicism. ch. I
29-Aug: I will be available to discuss research topics from 9:30 to 11:30 in my office.
29/31-Aug: APSA meeting. No class. Submit your research question via email August 31.
5-Sep: Strauss: Natural Right. ch. III

7-Sep: Arendt: The Vita Activa. Prologue, secs. 1, 2
12-Sep: Arendt: The Public and the Private. secs. 4, 5, 6
14-Sep: Arendt: Action. secs. 24-27. Issue bibliography due.
19/21-Sep: Arendt: Modernity. secs. 40-45

II. The Nature of Justice
26-Sep: Rawls: Justice as Fairness. sec. I.1-4, 8
28-Sep: Rawls: Principles of Justice. sec. II.11-14. Case description due.
3-Oct: No Class (Doctor's Appointment).

Work on your philosophy bibliography. A useful starting point is Goodin and Pettit (eds.), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, which is on reserve. Read the relevant chapter and identify the major works on the subject. Then use the various online indexing tools on the library web page to identify other sources. Your sources should be exclusively academic in nature, i.e., scholarly books and articles in peer-reviewed journals; don't bother googling the topic.

5-Oct: Rawls: The Original Position Background. sec. III.20-24
10-Oct: Rawls: The Original Position Operation. sec. III.25,26, 29

12-Oct: Young: Introduction. Introduction. Philosophy bibliography due.
17-Oct: Young: Non-distributive Justice Ch. 1
19-Oct: Fall break. No class.
24-Oct: Young: Oppression. Ch. 2
26-Oct: Young: Domination. Ch. 3.
31-Oct: Young: Difference. Ch. 6

III. The Post-modern World
2-Nov: Foucault: Introduction. What is Enlightenment? Philosophical argument due.
7-Nov: Foucault: Punishment. ch. I.1
9-Nov: Foucault: Docility. ch. 3.1
14-Nov: Foucault: Training. ch. 3.2
16-Nov: Foucault: Panopticism. ch. 3.3

21-Nov: Agamben: The State of Exception. chs. 1.1-1.7.
23-Nov: Thanksgiving break. No class.
28-Nov: Agamben: Exception and Government. chs. 1.8-1.10
30-Nov: Agamben: Exception and Law. chs. 2, 3. Full draft due.
5-Dec: Agamben: Exception and Violence. chs. 4, 5
7-Dec: Agamben: Exception and Power. ch. 6. Comments due.

Dec. 13: Final papers due (10:00 AM).

Research Paper Guidelines

Question and Thesis
Your paper should seek to engage a normative question in contemporary politics by developing and applying an answer to a major philosophical question posed by contemporary political theorists. Your question should address both the philosophical and practical issues, and your thesis should pose an answer to both.

Example. Question: In what sense are men and women to be treated as equals, and how should Title IX rules for interscholastic athletics measure equality? Thesis: Equality is rooted in complex equality, meaning that the standard is to be found in the social practice itself. This suggests a complex and pluralistic standard for judging equality in interscholastic athletics that seeks primarily to balance the role of men's and women's athletics in the school's social life rather than balancing solely funding, numbers of sports, or numbers of participants.

Your research question and thesis should be stated explicitly no later than the end of the second paragraph of your paper.

Elements
Your paper will have three main sections: a description of the practical case, an argument establishing an answer to your philosophical issue, and analysis of the case in light of the philosophical conclusion to which you come. These do not have to be addressed in the order above, though it is hard to complete the third element without having done the first two.

Case description: Describe the practical case that you are addressing, focusing especially on the ways in which it is normatively problematic. You must provide sufficient background information to allow the reader to understand the case in question. This may include historical information, statistical data, information about the structure of the practice in question, or any other pertinent information. This is the information that you will use to show how your philosophical position provides an answer your practical case. It may be drawn from either primary or secondary sources.

Philosophical Argument. Provide a logically sound answer to the core philosophical question involved in your case. Here you should rely primarily on works in contemporary political thought, drawing on them to build your own answer to the question. This answer may be simply a reasoned and articulated preference among already existing answers or may be a wholly original answer; most papers will be somewhere in between the two extremes. Be sure to anticipate the criticisms that might be made of your approach to the question, and at least suggest the outlines of how one might respond to these criticisms. Your paper must address one of the following philosophical questions:

What makes a political practice just?
In what sense, if at all, are human beings to be treated as equals?
What practices are required and prohibited in a democratic political system?
What makes the rule of the state legitimate?
What gives individuals rights, and what rights do individuals have?
What is power, and how is it practiced in contemporary political systems?
How does the relationship between men and women (or among racial, ethnic, or other identity groups) influence political practices in contemporary society?

Case analysis. Using the philosophical argument developed previously, provide an answer to the normative question involved in your case. As in the previous section, you should anticipate and respond to criticisms that might be raised in your application. It is not necessary that your answer fully and satisfactorily resolve the question; it is entirely possible that your answer will raise new challenges that should be addressed in a future paper.

Formatting
The paper should be approximately 4,000 words (13 to 16 pages, depending on the font used) and not substantially less than 3,500 words nor substantially more than 5,000 words. It must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated (hand-written page numbers are NOT acceptable).

Sources. You must have a minimum of 25 citations, at least 20 of which must refer to either scholarly or primary sources. Evaluate your sources carefully, especially with regard to Internet sources. You will be held responsible for the quality of your sources. Remember to cite the sources of ideas, not just of quotes, statistics, and other data.

Submission
The paper is at the scheduled time of the final exam: Wednesday, December 13, 10:00 AM. Papers received after 10:00 will incur a penalty, as specified in the general course policies. Papers may not be submitted electronically. Papers that are not paginated and stapled will not be accepted and will be considered late when they are subsequently submitted properly.

Deadlines for intermediate steps are as follows:

August 31: Research question. Submit a typed statement of your practical case and the philosophical question involved. Include a defense of how the question is related to your case. It should be no longer than one single-spaced page.
September 14: Annotated issue bibliography. Submit a listing of major primary and scholarly sources related to your issue, with sufficient description of them to decide whether they are worth studying in depth.
September 28: Case description draft. Submit a complete draft of your case description section.
October 12: Annotated theory bibliography. Submit a listing of major philosophical works related to your philosophical question, with sufficient description of them to decide whether they are worth studying in depth.
September 28: Philosophical argument draft. Submit a complete draft of your philosophical argument section.
November 30: Draft papers. Submit two copies a complete draft of your paper. One will be redistributed at random to other students for comments.
December 7: Comments. Submit a typed response of one to two single-spaced pages to the paper that you read. Give one copy to the instructor and one to the author.