Instructor: Catherine Guisan-Dickinson
Office:1354 Social Sciences
Phone: 612-624-5847
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday 11:00am-12:00pm.
guis0001@tc.umn.edu
Political Ideas and Ideologies
How should we live together as a community? This question has preoccupied political thinkers
for more than two millennia. In this brief introduction to a vast topic we will examine some
seminal texts in political thought and reflect on the meaning of key concepts for life in a political
community (e.g. democracy, equality, freedom, justice). We will also ask whether politics calls
for its own intrinsic code of morality or whether the virtues cultivated in our private lives are
appropriate for public life. As we reflect on these issues, we will become acquainted with some
important systems of political thought that have shaped our lives in the 20th century. This course
should help you think in a more informed and deliberate manner about your own political
preferences (we all have them even if only implicitly!), and those of others. It will also give you
some indication of how to pursue your inquiry into political thought, should you be so inclined.
Required Books: Terence Ball and Richard Dagger, Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader,
(available at H.D. Smith on the West Bank).
Course packet (texts denoted by ** below) available at Paradigm. Paradigm is located in the
Dinkydome, 1501 University Ave SE in Minneapolis. 612-379-4590.
Required readings and class discussions:
The readings are not long, but they are challenging and essential to your understanding of the
material covered in class. My lectures will introduce and complement rather than summarize the
texts. So, please, keep up with the readings or you will quickly feel overwhelmed, and you will
be poorly prepared to complete the written assignments. Bring your texts to class as we will pay
close attention to them. A study guide with questions will be provided at the beginning of each
week. It should facilitate both your reading of the texts at home and your participation in class
which will be highly appreciated. Twice you will be required to bring one page of reading notes
on any one of the texts assigned for the week. These notes are meant to help you write your
essays and they will be returned to you promptly with a few remarks, but no grade. You will get
automatic credit if you complete them. If you fail to turn them in on time, however, I will lower
your overall grade.
Grades:
Reading notes and participation in class discussions: 20%
Reading notes due Monday June 19 and Wednesday June 28.
First essay due on Monday June 26 (3 pages): 25 %
Second essay due on Wednesday July 5 (5 pages): 35 %
Final on Wednesday July 5: 20%
The two essays will be "thought pieces," that draw upon the texts from the course, not research
papers requiring other readings. You will be asked to engage in the texts and bring in your own
ideas to answer the essay questions under a meaningful title that you will choose. I will give you
a choice of topics for the first essay on Wednesday June 14, and for the second on Tuesday June
27. Reading notes and essays must be typed and spell-checked. I expect all assignments to be
completed on time and will deduct a half letter grade per day from late essays.
Course outline and reading assignments
Part I. How To Think About Politics?
June 12: No reading assigned.
June 13: Politics, an art or a science? **"The Pursuit of the Ideal." Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, pp. 1-19.
"Ideology: The Career of a Concept." Terrell Carver, pp. 3-10.
June 14: Should we obey the laws of the city? "Pericles' Funeral Oration." Thucydides, pp. 17- 21.
**"Crito." Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, pp. 79-96.
June 19: Founding the modern state:** Chapters xv-xxvi, Machiavelli, The Prince, pp. 54-91.
"The State of Nature and the Basis of Obligation." Thomas Hobbes, pp. 68-74.
First reading notes due.
Part II. Four Systems of Political Thought which have shaped the 20th Century.
June 20: Liberalism
"Toleration and Government." John Locke, pp. 75-89.
"Declaration of Independence of the United States." pp. 94-96
"Liberty and Individuality." John Stuart Mill, pp. 107-113.
"Private Profit, Public Good." Adam Smith, pp. 102-103.
"Liberalism and Positive Freedom." by T.H. Green, pp. 118-121.
June 21: Conservatism
"Reflections on the Revolution in France." Edmund Burke, pp. 135-141 and
**"Reflections...," pp. 143-149.
"On Being a Conservative." Michael Oakeshott, pp. 161-169.
"Modern Liberalism and Cultural Decline." Robert H. Bork, pp. 174-182.
June 26: Marxism
"Manifesto of the Communist Party." Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, pp. 208-221 and
**"Manifesto...," Robert C. Tucker, ed. The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 491-500.
First essay due.
June 27: Eurocommunism and Social Democracy
**"The Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Santiago Carrillo, 'Eurocommunism' and the State, pp. 141-160.
**"Party-centred Socialism?" John Keane. Democracy and Civil Society, pp. 101-120.
**"Building Social Capitalism, 1945-50." Donald Sassoon. One Hundred Years of Socialism, pp. 146-151.
Part III. Liberation Ideologies: Race and Gender.
June 28: Race: "It is not light that is needed, but fire." Frederick Douglass, Speech July 5, 1852.
"The cooperation of victims." Mohandas Gandhi. Open letter to Adolf Hitler.
"Letter from Birmingham Jail." Martin Luther King, Jr., pp. 360-370.
**"Preface" and "Nihilism in Black America." Cornel West, Race Matters, pp. xiii-xvi and 17-31.
Second reading notes due.
July 3: Feminism: "A hateful oligarchy of sex," Susan B. Anthony. Speech 1873.
** Chapter 1, John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, pp. 119- 145.
"Oppression." Marilyn Frye, pp. 389-397.
Gender and Race:**"Homeplace: A Site of Resistance." bell hooks, Yearning, race, gender and cultural politics, pp. 41-49.
July 4: No class.
Part IV. Democracy: The 21st Century's Global Political Ideal?
July 5: **"Conclusion." John Dunn, Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 BC to AD 1993, pp. 239-266.
**"New Year's Address to the Nation, Prague, January 1, 1990." V‡clav Havel, The Art of the Impossible, pp. 3-9.
Second essay due. Final exam.
