POLITICS SYLLABUS
Click here for the Political Thought syllabus:-
The aims of the course are:
to introduce students to some important ideas and concepts
to develop students awareness of political issues and problems
to develop students ability to interpret and evaluate political information
to enable students to develop independent and critical judgement and communicate judgements with clarity and coherence
Nature of Assessment
1. Coursework investigation:
An investigation of no more than 1500 words written during the course and an oral presentation (30%)
2. Final examination
Paper 1 (1 hour): Extract based questions on a selection from he set books (see syllabus)
Paper 2 (1 hour 45 minutes): Two essays based on political concepts (40%)
Course Content
The course will draw on a wide range of ideas from books, articles and from students. In the first term we will examine definitions of politics - what it is that makes something political? We go on to look at some of the ideas of Machievelli and Hobbes in order to explore the concepts of power and authority. In the second term we will focus on JS Mill's 'On Liberty' and Burke's 'Refelections on the Revolution in France' and in the third term, Marx and Engels 'Communist Manifesto' and George Woodcock's 'The Anarchist Reader'. These books represent four distinct approaches to looking at political issues.: the liberal (Mill); the conservative (Burke); the socialist/Marxist (Marx and Engels) and the anarchist (Woodcock). Using these four 'ideologies' as a framework, the course aims to develoop a deeper understanding of a number of key political concepts.
Resources:-
For an introduction we will study a brief Introduction to Politics discuss some of the issues raised.
Once we are aware of some of the issues that affect political discussion we will go on to create an Utopia of our own.
Utopian presentations:- Hanroselle
We will go on to look at ideas of Power and Authority and complete the set of notes from a set text. We will use this site for this lesson
From here we go on to a brief study of Machievelli's ideas. Here we will need a little historical background:-
| Wikipedia on Machievelli | The Prince | A rather long PowerPoint on Machievelli |
Machievelli's Prince was written at a particular time in European history when the power of princes and monarchs was taken for granted as God given. As man was sinful it was necessary to for an ordered society for man to be controlled by the laws of the prince and the church. Force was necessary when man disobeyed his ruler.
We go on to look at the ideas of Thomas Hobbes :
| Information on Hobbes | Hobbes Leviathon | Wikipedia on Hobbes |