Modern Political Thought - ARTS3843
Faculty: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
School: School of Social Sciences
Course Outline: School of Social Sciences
Campus: Sydney
Career: Undergraduate
Units of Credit: 6
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
Enrolment Requirements:
Prerequisite: 48 UOC overall, including 6 UOC at level 1 and 6 UOC at level 2 in one of the following streams, International Relations or Politics
CSS Contribution Charge: 1 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
View course information for previous years.
Description
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: International Relations
Are we really governed with our consent? In this course you will start by focusing on liberal theories of government based on the device of the social contract, which assumes our consent to being ruled. You will then address modern critiques of the social contract, which see other devices and mechanisms of power operating in modern societies. Among possible liberal theorists that we shall consider are Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill and Rawls; among possible critiques of liberalism that we shall consider are Tocqueville, Marx, Nietzsche, Arendt and Foucault. This course will situate liberalism within the crosscurrents of late modern society and phenomena such as capitalism, imperialism and colonialism, racism, the rise of mass society, among others.