Fall 2019

For Fall 2019, Professor Sarah Song will be teaching with Joshua Cohen.  The list of invited speakers is below.This course is a workshop for discussing work-in-progress in moral, political, and legal theory. The central aim is to enable students to engage directly with philosophers, political theorists, and legal scholars working on important normative questions. Another aim is to bring together scholars from different disciplines and perspectives, such as economics, history, sociology, and political science, who have strong normative interests. In Fall 2019, the workshop will focus on the theme of “identities.” A list of confirmed presenters is below.

           

The format of the course will be as follows. For the sessions with guest presenters, lunch will be served starting at 12:00. A designated student commentator will lead off with a 15-minute comment on the paper. The presenter will have 5-10 minutes to respond and then we will open up the discussion to the group. The first part of the course will be open to non-enrolled students, faculty, and visitors who wish to participate in the workshop discussion. We’ll stop for a break around 1:45 and those not enrolled in the course will leave. Enrolled students will continue the discussion with the guest from 2:00 to 3:00.

 

This is a cross-listed/room-shared course with the Philosophy and Political Science Departments. Students may enroll through Law (Law 210.2), Philosophy (Philosophy 290-6), or Political Science (PS 211). The first class will meet on Friday, August 30. Note, this course follows the Law School's Academic Calendar. (https://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/courses/academic_calendars.php)

 

Schedule:

 

Aug 30            Introductory session (for enrolled students only)

 

Sep 6               Brandon Terry, African & African American Studies and Social Studies, Harvard University

 

Sep 13             Robert Gooding-Williams, Philosophy and African American & African Diaspora Studies, Columbia University

 

Sep 20             Julie Suk, Sociology and Law, CUNY Graduate Center

 

Sep 27             Paula Moya, English, Stanford University

 

Oct 4                Kathryn Abrams, Law, UC Berkeley

 

Oct 11              Taeku Lee, Law and Political Science, UC Berkeley

 

Oct 18              Rachel Kranton, Economics, Duke University 

 

Oct 25              Francis Fukuyama, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University

 

Nov 1               Elizabeth Barnes, Philosophy, University of Virginia

 

Nov 8               Desmond Jagmohan, Political Science, UC Berkeley

 

Nov 15             Lisa Garcia Bedolla, School of Education, UC Berkeley

 

Nov 22             Will Kymlicka, Philosophy, Queen’s University

This course covers the theory of rights in recent scholarship in political theory and general jurisprudence.  The course is divided into two main parts.  The first, surveying recent scholarship by commentators such as Brett, Tierney, Tuck, and Villey, offers a brief history of rights in the West and explores the major textual sources of a modern Rechtswissenschaft or ‘legal science of right’ in Classical Antiquity (especially the Roman law of obligations) and selected medieval and early modern sources such as Ockham, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and Kant.  The course will also study foundational modern texts of rights theory such as Bentham, Austin, Marx, and Hohfeld.  The second part of the course proceeds to consider the major conceptual, normative, and interpretive problems on the status of rights in contemporary general jurisprudence and political theory:  Major problems for study in seminar will include the correlativity of rights and duties; the ‘Will Theory’ vs. ‘Interest Theory’ debate; the status of collective or group rights; the status of human rights; the function of rights in liberal political theory and constitutional democracy; the role of the state in designing a rights regime.  Principal readings will likely include texts by Dworkin, Feinberg, Finnis, Gewirth, Green, Hart, Kelsen, Moyn, Nozick, Raz, Waldron, Wellman, and Wenar.

This course explores the political thought of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and early and medieval Christians from Plato to Marsilius. The emphasis is on canonical texts likely to be of most use to those preparing to teach in this or related fields, but anyone curious about the politics or the philosophy of these periods is encouraged to enrol. No Greek or Latin is assumed, though we will be attentive to original terminology and key terms will be will be taught and discussed throughout the course. Historical context will be supplied by the instructor and by additional recommended readings if desired.

Semester Schedule:

1. Aug 29. Introduction
2. Sep 5. Plato, Republic I-IV
3. Sep 12. Plato, Republic V-X
4. Sep 19. Plato, Laws I-IV, X-XII
5. Sep 26. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I-III, VI-X
6. Oct 3. Aristotle, Politics I-III
7. Oct 10. Aristotle, Politics IV-VIII and Rhetoric I
8. Oct 17. Hellenistic philosophy (Inwood/Gerson reader); Epictetus’ Discourses extract tbd
9. Oct 23. Livy, extracts tbd; Polybius VI *** NB different day
10. Oct 31. Cicero, De Re Publica and De Legibus; Lactantius extract on Carneades
11. Nov 7. ** NO CLASS ** 
12. Nov 14. Cicero, De Officiis; Sallust, Conspiracy of Catiline
13. Nov 21. Lactantius, Divine Institutes extract; Augustine, City of God, extracts tbd
14. Dec 5. Aquinas, Political Writings (Hackett); Marsilius of Padua, Defensor Pacis extracts tbd 
15. Dec 12. Conclusion. 

Note:  Qualified undergraduates are welcome with permission of the instructor.

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International migration is reshaping politics, economics, and social relations around the world.  No longer confined to the traditional countries of immigration, people are migrating to new areas across the globe and changing the ethnic composition of many parts of the developed and developing world.  Migrant workers play a significant role in the global economy, fueling many sectors of the economy in the developed world, and serving as sources of foreign exchange for less developed countries.  Many aspects of our own domestic economy could not function without migrant labor. Yet we see a backlash against immigrants. 

This course will examine international migration from a historical and comparative perspective looking at why people migrate, how citizens respond to that migration, and how different states cope with migration domestically and internationally.  The first part of the course looks at the changing relationship between the state, immigrants, and citizenship.  We then turn to case studies.  We will examine four different types of receiving states: a traditional immigrant state, a post-colonial state, a non-traditional immigrant, and a highly industrialized latecomer state.

Subfield: International Relations

NOTE: Students who took PS 138F "Immigrants, Citizenship, and the State" with Professor Gurowitz cannot take this course due to the substantial similarity in course content.

The goal of this course is to introduce advanced political science graduate students to current debates in the field of international security and to prepare these students for conducting dissertation research in their own areas of interest within this field. Its orientation is theoretical but also empirical, and it focuses on both reading and research.

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history occurred in early 2019 in large part due to policy differences over how to secure the Southern border. Pundits debate rhetoric over migrant caravans, coast-to-coast walls, and the rights of asylum-seekers, while empirical facts seem to conflict.  Is there an immigration crisis, and to what extent have the actions of the United States fueled it?  What have U.S. policymakers tried to achieve in the hemisphere, and how successful have they been?  Conversely, what factors drive Latin Americans to the U.S., and how have they changed over time? In this course, we will examine U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America through the lens of migration.  Themes covered in lecture and class discussion will include major U.S. foreign policy objectives as well as the role of American business interests in the region, and their impact on migration, particularly economic development and human rights.  More specific topics will include the Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt’s Corollary, Dollar Diplomacy, the Washington Consensus, the Iran-Contra affair, the Bracero program, NAFTA and its revisions, and the growth of MS-13 and other trafficking gangs.   Previous coursework in International Relations and/or Comparative Politics is recommended, but not necessary or required for success in the course.

Subfield: International Relations

Instructor: Dr. Wendy Sinek

This doctoral seminar reviews major theoretical and empirical debates in Latin American politics.  The goal is to enhance students’ empirical knowledge of Latin American countries, to explore the central themes and issues that have animated the literature on Latin American politics, and to encourage students to begin to think about how they might design and execute research that would contribute to scholarship on the region.  Major themes include: corporatism and other forms of political incorporation, democratic breakdown and bureaucratic authoritarianism, import substitution, democratization, the politics of economic liberalization, Latin American politics institutions and party politics, business and politics, the rule of law, and subnational institutions.  

This is a rst course on statistical inference and modeling for use in social science research. It
covers probability and the theory of statistical inference, justications for and problems with common
statistical procedures, and how to apply procedures to empirical social science data to draw conclusions
relevant to positive social theory. We will pay particular attention to the motivation for statistical
inference and modeling from the standpoint of social science. Lectures and reading will primarily
cover theory and simple examples. Problem sets will cover both simple theoretical extensions and
applications of tools we develop to real data.

Required Skills. Students should have completed PS230 or its equivalent with a B or better.
Students should have a working knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, and elementary calculus. The
course is suitable for students with a large range of prior exposure to statistics and mathematics.
Students with Ph.D.-level training in mathematical statistics from a statistics department will not
nd that it pushes their capabilities; students with less background than this should nd at least
some challenges, conceptual or technical. All students capable of gaining admission to a Berkeley
Ph.D. program can fully succeed in this class regardless of prior technical preparation other than the
required skills listed above.

Please note that description is from Fall 2014

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