POLI-Politics

Surveys contemporary academic approaches to the study of nationalism and writings of nationalist theorists from the 18th through 20th centuries. A few historical cases are considered.

Introduces the gendered dimensions of war and its aftermath. Explores what gender might teach us about security and the dynamics of war and peace with a particular focus on the everyday and on the roles and experiences of women.

Examines Marx's use of his sources in political philosophy and political economy to develop a method for analyzing the variable ways in which social change is experienced as a basis for social action. Provides a similar analysis of contemporary materials. Contrasts and compares Marxian critiques of these materials and readings based on Nietzsche, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and rational choice materialism.

Studies Orientalism as a concept of political theory and as a historical practice. Considers how Western views of the peoples, cultures, and governments of 'the East influenced political, intellectual, and aesthetic projects of the 18th and 19th centuries, with attention to the themes of colonialism, nationalism, language, and gender. Also considers Orientalism as a subject of post-colonial thought.

Explores the evolution of queer theorizing and politics in the United States from Stonewall to the present day. Examines the changing definition of queer identity; the intersection of race, class, and sexuality in the modern gay rights movement; and the rifts within the queer community. Draws from political theory, autobiography, literature, film, and law.

Provides an understanding of political parties and elections. Topics include historical evolution of American political parties, their role in industrial development, public opinion, psychological determinants of voting behavior, information transmission in mass democracies, and media bias.

Examines legal regulation of international violent conflict. Students examine development of normative standards within international law and creation of institutions to both adjudicate violations and regulate conduct.

Explores the sources of cooperation and conflict in modern Asia from the waning years of the Imperial Age to the present, with stops en route such as the three Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts in the Taiwan Strait.

Explores the central political questions surrounding global governance of climate change. Focuses on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as the international hub of climate politics, and in particular, explores issues of equity and justice.

Introduces the literature on the history of the body. Explores the multiple ways in which the body, in the West, has been the site of cultural and political inscription from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. Topics may include: pornography, criminality, sexuality, art, race, and medicine.

A course on the political and philosophical sources of ecological and social sustainability and how they affect and inflect the design, implementation, and practices of sustainability. Asks whether they offer a realistic alternative to liberalism and other political and economic ideologies and practices.

Introduction to techniques used to produce power, notably by manufacturing and distorting truth from overt propaganda to public relations or advertising. Each week will focus on one conceptual apparatus used to frame reality, its related techniques and strategies as well as its economic, social or political objectives. Frameworks will include bureaucratic rationality, totalitarian propaganda, colonial mythology, state euphemism, "democratic' story-telling, conspiracy theories, branding, and green-washing. Enrollment by permission of instructor.

Course charts the history of immigration policy and debate in the U.S., highlighting the ways economic, social, and geopolitical factors influenced the processes and outcomes of immigration debate and policy making. Focuses on interaction between society and state in formulation and implementation of immigration policy, and the ways policy outcomes may differ from expectations.

Focuses on the application of theory to practice by creating an opportunity for students to explore and analyze the connections between federal, state, and local policies and their impacts on day-to-day programs in the Santa Cruz community and region.

This internship in governmental, public policy, and advocacy organizations and leaders in the Santa Cruz area requires a minimum of 50 hours with an assigned field study organization, a field journal, and limited classroom work.

Historical-political survey of Russia within the U.S.S.R. is followed by examination of the 1991 revolution, the attempt to recover a national identity and establish a unified Russian state. Highlighted in this course are cultural and political factors central to the Russian experience: personalistic modes of political organization, a remote and corrupt state apparatus, collectivist forms of thought and self-defense.

Overview of social movements by analysis of specific theories and examples. Course connects the study of theories and movements to larger political processes. Topics may include: New Social Movement theory; gender and social movement; democratic, historical, transnational, global and/or local social movements.

Explores democratization processes from a variety of historical and geographical perspectives. Examines the role of foreign influences, economic development, civil society, elites, and institutions in the transition and consolidation of democratic systems.

Provides overview of U.S. foreign policy formulation: considers how U.S. political culture shapes foreign policy; examines governmental actors involved: the president, executive branch agencies, and Congress; then considers non-governmental actors: the media, interest groups, and public opinion.

Examines how enmity, the state, and war serve as limits for political conceptions of who we are, tensions between commitments to diversity and to peace, and liberal and humanitarian efforts to address these tensions. Students examine works written prior to the liberal period (Hobbes), in response to it (Hegel and Schmitt) and finally a 20th-century liberal revival (Rawls), and discuss rights, conscience, political obligation, war, and the state.

Considers causes and consequences of inequality in modern societies. Emphasizes empirical analysis of contemporary forms of class, racial, and gender inequality and examination of normative theories of distributive justice. Major restrictions lifted during open enrollment.

Introduces central categories and material implications that underwrite discourses on modernity since the late 18th century. Students read across the disciplines in fields such as political theory, postcolonialism, history, science studies, anthropology, and feminist criticism.

Explores agency in contexts marked by co-action and conflict, interrogating agency's historical dimensions (conceptual and intrinsic), attribution to collective or ecosystemic actors, affective aspects, and relation to democracy and economy. Explores classic texts in political thought, as well as Taylor, Foucault, Butler, and Ranciere.

Survey of theories of nationalism, with selected nationalist thinkers and case studies. Emphasis on historical analyses and cases. Topics include: origins and typologies of nationalisms, racism, gender, revolution, and the state.