SYLLABUS

DC- 5: Understanding Comparative Government and Politics

I. Understanding comparative politics (8 lectures)

a. Nature and scope

b. Going beyond Eurocentrism

II. Historical context of modern government (16 lectures)

a. Capitalism: meaning and development: globalization

b. Socialism: meaning, growth and development

c. Colonialism and decolonization: meaning, context, forms of colonialism; anti-colonialism struggles and process of decolonization

III. Themes for comparative analysis (24 lectures)

A Comparative study of constitutional developments and political economy in the following countries: Britain, Brazil, Nigeria and China.

DC- 6: Processes and Institutions in Comparative Perspective

I. Approaches to Studying Comparative Politics (8 lectures)

a. Political Culture

b. New Institutionalism

II. Electoral System (8 lectures)

Definition and procedures: Types of election system ( First past and post, Proportional Representation, Mixed Representation)

III. Party System (8 lectures)

Historical contexts of emergence of the party system and types of parties

IV. Nation-state (8 lectures)

What is nation-state? Historical evaluation in Western Europe and Postcolonial context 'Nation' and 'State': debates

V. Democratization (8 lectures)

Process of democratization in postcolonial, post-authoritarian and post-communist countries

VI. Federalism (8 lectures)

Historical context Federation and Confederation: debates around territorial division of power.

DC- 7 Western Political Thought

Classical Political Philosophy

I. Text and Interpretation (2 weeks)

II. Antiquity

Plato (2 weeks)

Philosophy and Politics, Theory of Forms, Justice, Philosophers King/Queen, Communism

Presentation theme: Critique of Democracy; Women and Guardianship, Censorship

Aristotle ( 2 weeks)

Forms, Virtue, Citizenship, Justice, State and Household

Presentation themes: Classification of Goverenment; man as zoon politikon

III. Interlude:

Machiavelli (2 weeks)

Virtue, Religion, Republicanism

Presentation themes: morality and statecraft; vice and virtue

IV. Possessive Individualism

Hobbes (2 weeks)

Human nature, State of Nature, Social Contract, State

Presentation themes: State of nature; Social Contract, Leviathan; atomistic Individuals.

Locke (2 weeks)

Laws of Nature, Natural Rights, Property

Presentation themes: Natural Rights; right to dissent; justification of property

Group: B Modern Political Philosophy

Course Objective: Philosophy and politics are closely intertwined. We explore this convergence by identifying four main tendencies here. Students will be exposed to the manner in which the questions of politics have been posed in terms that have implications for larger questions of thought and existence.

I. Modernity and its discourses (8 lectures)

This section will introduce students to the idea of modernity and the discourses around modernity. Two essential readings have been prescribed.

II. Romantics (16 lectures)

a. Jean Jacques Rousseau (8 lectures)

Presentation themes: General Will; local or direct democracy; self- government; origin of inequality.

b. Marry Wollstonecraft (8 lectures)

Presentation themes: Women and paternalism; critique of Rousseau's idea of education; legal rights

III. Liberal Socialist (8 lectures)

a. John Stuart Mill

Presentation themes: Liberty, Suffrage and subjection of women, right of minorities; utility principle.

IV. Radicals (16 lectures)

a. Karl Marx (8 lectures)

Presentation themes: Dialectical and Historical Materialism: relationship between Base and Super Structure, Surplus Value, Stages of Development, Theory of Class and Class Struggle, Theory of State, Revolution, Alienation; difference with other kinds of materialism

b. Alexandra Kollontai (8 lectures)

Presentation themes: Winged and wingless Eros; Proletarian Women; socialization of housework; disagreement with Lenin.