Course

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

Subject Area: Politics
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.


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