杏吧论坛

Prof Jonathan White CBG 7.09

This course is available on the MSc in Comparative Politics, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (杏吧论坛 & Sciences Po), MSc in European Studies (Research), MSc in Political Economy of Europe, MSc in Political Economy of Europe (杏吧论坛 and Sciences Po) and MSc in Political Sociology. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course investigates various ways in which the State's authority to act has been underpinned in Europe, both ideologically and institutionally, in the modern period. It looks at how the State has been used to give expression to the democratic principle, and the ways this has been undermined or rejected. The module aims to provide students with a deep analytical understanding of the changing role of the State in European society. There will be three parts: A) Theorising the political (including sessions on: the State; collective self-rule and the liberal-democratic compromise; ideology, public opinion and the idea of democracy), B) Democracy in post-War Europe (parties and the structuring of political conflict; the emergence and crisis of the Welfare State; 1968, 1989 and the rediscovery of 'civil society'), and C) Contemporary European trends (ideological convergence and the politics of risk and security; political participation and populism; the challenge of transnational integration: 'governance', 'output legitimacy' and the diffusion of State power). The course will conclude with an overview on possible trajectories to come, under the heading 'post-ideological, post-democratic and post-statal? - Europe today and beyond'.

This course is delivered through a combination of seminars and lectures totalling a minimum of 22.5 hours across Michaelmas Term.  This year, some or all of this teaching will be delivered through a combination of recorded remarks, in-person (or, if a School closure demands it, online) workshops, and online seminars.  This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of the Michaelmas Term.  A review session will be held at the start of the Summer Term to prepare for the online assessment.

One 2,000 word unassessed essay

Quentin Skinner (1989) 'The State', in Ball and Hanson (eds.) Political Innovation and Conceptual Change; Peter Wagner (2008) Modernity as Experience and Interpretation; James Tully (2002) 'The Unfreedom of the Moderns', Modern Law Review 63; Margaret Canovan (2005) The People; Michael Freeden (1996) Ideologies and Political Theory; Claus Offe (1996) Modernity and the State: East and West; Chantal Mouffe (2005) On the Political; Frank Furedi (2005) Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right; Nina Eliasoph (1998) Avoiding Politics; Peter Mair (2006), 'Ruling the Void? The Hollowing of Western Democracy', New Left Review 42; Jonathan White (2019), Politics of Last Resort: Governing by Emergency in the European Union (Oxford UP).

Online assessment (100%) in the ST.

The online assessment for this course will be administered via Moodle.  Questions will be made available at a set date/time and students will be given a set period in the ST to complete the answers to questions and upload their responses back into Moodle.