Session D

This course provides an overview of the U.S. political system from the nation's founding to the present. In addition to examining the core structures of our federal system, we will also explore a number of
special topics, such as the evolution of civil rights and the causes of partisan gridlock. The course will pay particular attention to the role institutions play in shaping political conflict and, ultimately,in determining who wins and who loses.

Instructor:  Travis M. Johnston

Email: tmjohnst@berkeley.edu

This course will introduce students to several foundational questions in the study of American constitutional politics and to techniques of constitutional interpretation.  What is the role of the Supreme Court in ensuring an appropriate balance of national and state power?  What is the role of the Court in policing the separation of powers at the national level, in peacetime and in wartime?  Should the Court be engaged in these efforts at all?  Course materials will largely be drawn from landmark constitutional decisions, supplemented by other historical and analytical academic texts.  

Does democracy work exclusively in homogeneous societies? Only in such societies, it has long been maintained, can a people be sufficiently similar to form shared politi­cal understanding and projects. Absent considerable commonality—religious, linguistic, ethnic, racial—it is feared that democracy deteriorates into the tyranny of the majority or a war of all against all. But we are in the midst of a dramatic shift in which democratic societies are increas­ingly diverse and their citizens less willing to ‘forget’ their many differences to melt into a domi­nant national culture. These develop­ments raise some basic questions. Is it possible to achieve sufficient agreement on fundamental political issues in a diverse society to sustain democracy? Can the character of political community or the nation be reconceived and reformed? If not, is democracy doomed? Or might it be possible to reform democracy to render it compatible with conditions of deep diversity? If so, does the democratic claim to legitimacy also need to be trans­formed? This course will explore these questions in a number of ways. We will study exemplary historical statements of the ideal of democracy drawing on traditional and contemporary works in political philosophy. We will also draw on contemporary work in sociology, anthropology, cultural and legal studies, and political science to examine the nature of social and cultural diversity including religion, value, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class. Finally, we will explore works that bring these themes together by attempting to (re-) articulate the relevance of specific identities to political engagement and the general ideal of democracy in light of in­creased diversity. Specific themes to be considered include: race and democracy, the politics of recognition, and the ethics of identity. In addressing these issues we take a deeply multidiscipli­nary approach, drawing on methodologies and disciplines beyond political science ranging from philosophy, history and literature to sociology anthropology and ethnic studies.

This course begins with a brief historical review of the demise of the Ottoman Empire, followed by the British and French mandate over the Middle East region, the anti-colonialist revolt, the emergence of Israel, Arab-Israeli conflicts, the rise of secular nationalism, and the resurgence of Islamism in all its populist, revolutionary, conservative, and revivalist forms. We will then shift our focus to new modes of thinking about the region grounded in political economy, economic insecurity, youth bulge, and the burgeoning revolts against authoritarianism and the status quo. After examining a myriad of reasons behind social protests and movements in the region, this course will turn to comparative as well as case study approaches by focusing primarily on important changes in the Middle East landscape. We will pay special attention in the second half of the semester to the following cases: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Syria, and Tunisia, as well as Israeli-Palestinian front.  We also take a thematic approach to examining causes of social unrest, human rights and democratic struggles, identity formation, and sectarian divide/tensions in the region.

Course Description to come

This course will introduce students to some key concepts used in contemporary comparative political analysis. It will do so through an examination of the reasons for why some modern nation states provide better living conditions for their citizens. Are these differences due to factors such as political institutions, legislative arrangements, parties and party systems, or social forces such as culture and ethnicity? Class lectures will focus on developing an understanding of how political scientists use these terms and whether they provide adequate explanations for why states vary so substantially in their performance. There will be two lectures per week and one required discussion section.

This course can satisfy either the Social & Behaviorial Sciences or International Studies breadth requirement.

Note: Course description is from Summer 2013

The overwhelming majority of governments throughout history have been dictatorial. Even the recent spread of democracy has not extirpated authoritarian rule: as recently as 2006 only 90 out of 193 countries were considered democracies, and 45 were full-blown autocracies. Whatever the benefits of democracy, it seems dictatorship is here to stay. This course explores the characteristics and dynamics of non-democratic regimes: how and why they come about, what sustains them, why some people resist them and others do not, and how and why they decline and fall. We will explore a variety of examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Using films and novels in addition to political science literature, we will investigate how dictators maintain their power, how ordinary people react to repression, and the links between dictatorship and security and economic development.

Subfield: Comparative Politics

Homelessness, global warming, corruption, bankrupt pension systems, educational inequality... This course explores what we can learn in general about the way societies try to address and solve difficult and seemingly intractable public problems. Can we attribute success or failure to institutions and their capacity to solve problems? Are problems difficult to solve because they are so complex and we lack know-how or because of a failure of political will? What are the characteristics of organizations or communities able to solve problems proactively or creatively? How do public problems get politically framed and how are they used to mobilize constituencies? The course draws on literature in public administration, public policy studies, and democratic theory to try to better understand some of the major social, political, environmental, and economic problems of our contemporary world.

The class exposes students to the multiple forms of lawmaking in the American legal system, ranging from the elaboration of common law and constitutional rules by judges, to the fashioning of statutes by members of Congress, to the dissemination of regulations by executive agencies, to the use ballot initiatives to put legal rules up for direct vote by the people themselves. Together these forms of law constitute the American legal system. The course explores how each of these distinct forms law differs with respect to such criteria as democratic accountability and legitimacy, efficiency, stability, and their capacity to incorporate policy expertise. A primary lens through which the course approaches law is by reading and discussing court opinions."  

Professor Farhang's 150 "American Legal System" is the same as his Public Policy 190 "Special Topics in Public Policy". This is the exact same course listed under Political Science.

IMPORTANT! Please note you will NOT be able to take Political Science 150 with Professor Farhang, if you have already completed (or plan to take) Political Science 150 with either Kagan or Farhang, or Public Policy 190 with Farhang.

A world without the West,” “Islamic banking,” “leap-frogging development,” “failed states,” “virtual economy vs. real economy,” “neo-mercantilism” – these are only a few of a long list of real-world phenomena which are in the news today. Important shifts in the distribution of power and wealth in the world raise a central question: are we witnessing the dissolution of the post-1945 world political and economic order? The declining hegemony of the United States in the world economy, the rise of oil-based authoritarianisms, the linking-up of various tribal and semi-feudal societies to the world of latest technology, the wholesale questioning of the universality of human behavior, the unexpected return of religion and mysticism into politics, the growing fuzziness surrounding the very definitions of labor, production and services stagger our minds and boggle our imaginations. These developments are often described as unexpected and even stunning. Yet, as this course will argue, the shocking nature of these developments, the sensationalism which accompanies them, are in fact a result of a hugely insufficient knowledge of the history of the rise of the international market economy and the circumstances which conditioned that rise.

Subfield: Comparative Politics