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The seminar module offers a more extensive and more thorough analysis of a topic from within political science. To this end, the seminar module provides an overview and a critical discussion of the literature and the issues relevant for the topic of the seminar.
The objectives for this module are:
Specific competencies to be achieved for the students in this module include:
Public policy is the sub-field of political science that studies how governments use their power to solve domestic and international problems. How do ordinary citizens and policy actors conceptualize policy problems? Why does one approach to a problem emerge victorious from the political process? What makes policies more or less effective at solving the problems they are meant to solve? How do we judge effectiveness? What are the normative (ethical) standards by which policies should be judged? Should government use torture as a means to national security? Should government use financial incentives to steer the behavior of doctors, teachers or recipients of foreign aid? How can government influence the behavior of officials, public and private organizations, and citizens to be consonant with public goals? In this seminar, we explore how different scholarly approaches to public policy answer these questions.
This seminar covers the main approaches used by political scientists, including some that draw heavily from other disciplines. These approaches are: economics, cognitive psychology, rational choice theory, moral philosophy, discourse analysis, and the instructor's "polis model."
Sociology
Of the nine seminars the student has to pass as part of the MA degree, at least six seminar modules have to be in political science.
Deborah Stone
The assessment method is 7-days home assignment .
External examiner/Graded marking.
The seminar module requires active participation of students. At the beginning of the seminar module the lecturer and the students agree on specific "activity requirements" that the students have to fulfill.
The module compendium consists of about 1,200 pages.
A complete list will be available with the course syllabus. This partial list provides a sample of the mix of disciplines, approaches, and topics.
Louis Agamben, "The State of Security" in The State of Security (Chicago: Chicago University Press) pp. 1-32.
Jean Maria Arrigo, "A Utilitarian Argument Against Torture Interrogation of Terrorists," Science and Engineering Ethics vol. 10 (2004): 543-72.
Andrew Clapham, Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Alan Dershowitz, " The War Against Terror chapter 4 ("Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Tortured?") pp. 131-163.
Charles Fried and Gregory Fried, Because It is Wrong: Torture Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror (NY: W.W. Norton, 2010), chap. 2, "Absolutely Wrong," pp. 27-51
Steven Kelman, "Cost Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique," Regulation , Jan./Feb. 1981, pp. 33-40.
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (NY: Oxford University Press), chap. 2, " From Post-War Universal Human Rights to Post-Cold War Minority Rights," pp. 27-55
Dale Miller, "The Norm of Self-Interest," American Psychologist vol. 54, no. 12 (1999): 1053-1060.
Kristin Renwick Monroe, "'But What Else Could I Do?' Choice, Identity and a Cognitive-Perceptual Theory of Ethical Political Behavior," Political Psychology vol. 15, no. 2 (1994): 201-26.
Amartya Sen, "Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory," Philosophy and Public Affairs vol. 6, no. 4 (1977): 317-44 [selections].
Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 2000 [orig. 1999]) chapter 1 "Perspectives on Freedom" pp.13-34.
Edith Stokey and Richard Zeckhauser, A Primer for Policy Analysis (NY: W.W. Norton, 1978), chap. 9 "Project Evaluation: Cost Benefit Analysis," excerpt pp. 134-42.
Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (W.W. Norton, 3 rd ed. Forthcoming 2011), selected chapters in manuscript form
Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness (New York: Penguin, rev. ed. 2009), introduction pp. 1-14 and chapter "How to Increase Organ Donations" pp. 177-84) and chapter 12 "Saving the Planet (pp. 185-98).
Dvora Yanow, How Does A Policy Mean: Interpretive Approaches to Policy Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996), chap. 1, pp. 1-33.
