Harvard Citations

Dear all,
In the review session on Saturday I mentioned an excellent guide for Harvard citations. You can find it in the following website:

http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/library/citing_references/docs/Citing_Refs.pdf

You can also find the powerpoint slides we covered in the review session here:

http://www.open.ac.uk/documents/8/rd11160555162811266.ppt

(please note that this link might not be active until 6pm tonight)

Have a wonderful day,

Karem

Tutorial 8^th February

In previous weeks we have looked at Liberalism and religion in a broadly liberal context. The theorists and case studies were situated in fairly liberal societies. We now look at Iran as a place where religious claims have turned into a religious state project and where political authority is rooted in religion. How does this work in the concrete example of the Iranian state since the 1979 Iranian revolution? This changes the way we see the role of politics. Religious politics in this case is not solely about identity or redressing material injustice, it is the foundation for a state. There has been much contestation inside Iran, with critiques of the way that religion is interpreted, from sacred and secular groups. Even in a fairly successful religious state the power struggles continue in this new framework.

The questions this week split into two halves, the first is intended to help you think about the role of religion in explaining the outcomes of the Iranian revolution. The second continues this by asking you to think about the role of Western ideas in shaping the Iranian constitution, but also considers how the case study may be useful in thinking about other issues on the course. This is may be a rich case study for bringing in to exam questions in other rooms of the course.

Pick an ‘ism’-Religious Fundamentalism, Nationalism, Fascism, Anti-Imperialism, Populism, Totalitarianism?

What did the term ‘fundamentalism’ imply in its original US context? Does Khameini’s ideology conform to this definition?

If Iran had been predominantly Sunni (had not had a Shi’ite scholarly tradition)would the Iranian revolution have taken a different form?

Compare Soroush’s critique of an Islamic state with his pupil, Akbar Ganji’s?

How far can populism and nationalism explain Khomeini’s ideology?

What is the significance of religion in the Iranian revolution?

Other theorists

What non-Islamic thinkers were mentioned as influencing the thought of Iranians?

How did ‘the West’ influence the revolution?

Has Khomaini been reading Machiavelli?

Can ‘religious truth’ be analogous to Latour’s ‘facts speaking for themselves’ in a totalising politics?

If the Cold War had not happened, would the Iranian revolution have happened?

The three approaches with which you looked at the Cold War prioritised ideology, geo-politics and technological capacity in explaining the Cold War. Can you use these perspectives to analyse the Iranian revolution?

Tutorial 11^th December

Room 2: Political Animals

Weeks 1 & 2

Introduction-

In the first week of Room 2 we have looked at the question of what it means, politically, to be human. It introduces Aristotle’s idea of the ‘political animal’; that human beings are special amongst the animals because they have the power of speech; the ability to pronounce on matters of right and wrong. If there is a distinction between the political realm and the rest of nature, then there is a line drawn, which can include and exclude from the political realm.

That line has been drawn differently by different theorists. Jeremy Bentham, in discussing how law should treat different groups, argued that the significant feature of politically relevant creatures was their ability to suffer. Mary Wollstonecroft, in arguing that women should have the same political rights as men, claimed that humanity was clearly distinguished from the animal kingdom by reasoning, virtue and knowledge. Three modern takes on the problem of distinguishing the political/human world from the non-political/natural world were introduced: Fukuyama argued that it is the sum of human characteristics that give us that essential factor X that makes us human; McKibben argues that it is our ability to resist and decide against our ‘natural’ urges; and Gray argued that there is no reason to distinguish humans from other animals.

For this tutorial we worked as a group to fill out the grid below in more detail, ensuring that students understood the different debates in which questions of political humaness might be important-

Thinker	Their understanding of the dividing line	The debate this is relevant to.
Aristotle	Speech and moral judgment/ voice and utility judgment.	What counts as 'political'.
Bentham	The ability to suffer/ inability to suffer.	Who and what should the law cover.
Wollstonecroft	Reason, value and knowledge/ brute animals.	Whether women should be accorded political status.
Fukuyama	Factor X (emergent property of humanness)/ those not genetically human.	Who is accorded moral status.
McKibben	The ability to say ‘enough’/those governed by species instinct.	Whether a techno-optimism is justified.
Gray	There is no distinction, we are all governed by species instinct and it cannot be avoided.	Whether there is any such thing as the ‘progress of humanity’.

Tutorial notes- Wednesday 24th November 2010

19:00 Welcome- So far in this room you’ve discussed the relationship between leaders and led and the notion of representation. This seminar will cover Week 3: A Crisis of Representation? Having considered the idea that democracy is now in crisis because people no longer vote, it covers three main topics: the role of citizens in a democracy; the rise of populism; and the rise of the Information and Network Society. We will spend half an hour on each and then you will be given the final half hour to discuss TMA 02 between yourselves and ask me any questions you have about TMAs.

19:05 What role for citizens in democracy. (Readings found in 2nd section of week 3)

What is the key feature of democratic and legitimate decision making for Barber and Manin?

In the extracts from Barber and Manin, the two writers anticipate criticism of their own positions. What are those criticisms and how do they refute them?

Why does Schumpeter feel that citizens can’t make legitimate decisions about national and international matters? Do you agree?

Why does Walzer think that these citizens can, nevertheless play an important part in political decision making?

Do you think citizens should be more involved in politics?

19:30 The Rise of Populism

What is your favourite example of a politician trying to look ‘down with the kids’?

What other groups of people have politicians tried to appeal to in a populist way and how have they done it?

Do you think these attempts helped them become more popular politically?

What sort of person does a politician wish to be seen as?

Why might someone worry that populism makes a tyranny of the majority more likely?

Do you think a ruler can ever really be ‘of the people’?

19:55-20:05 Break

20:05 The Information and Network Society

How might ‘knowledge’ be an important component of traditional theories of democracy?

Do you think that globalisation undermines traditional theories of democracy? How?/Why not?

Who do you think count as part of the knowledge elite?

Could they be held democratically accountable? How?/ Why not?

20:30 How do theories of democracy help us to understand the role of modern political leaders? Discuss.

Tutorial 1, Room 1 -Karem

We started the tutorial by discussing how we felt about the first TMA. We noted that in this course you are given a lot of information and a big challenge is to decide how to use that information to support your own answer to the TMA question, without getting caught in the trap of simply summarizing and repeating all that you have read in the essay - as this will leave very little space for your own thoughts and ideas. The course resources that you do use must be linked back to the TMA question.

After discussing the first TMA we moved on to talk about the first two weeks of Room 1 by discussing a series of questions and bringing up authors introduced in the Room as appropriate to answer these questions.

Here is a brief overview of the questions we discussed during our tutorial (in parenthesis, some of the authors brought up by students).
1. What is democracy? (Pericles, Burke, Dahl)
a. Does it exist? (Mosca, Michels, Pareto)
b. Do we want it to exist? (Madison)
2. What are the main dangers of democracy as discussed in the readings? (Madison, Burke)
3. What is the role of leaders in a democracy?
a. Should representatives be representative of the people or stand above the people?
b. How should leaders rise to power (Mosca, Pareto, Michels)
4. What is a Machiavellian leader?
5. Do we agree with the statement: 'people receive the leaders they deserve'?


Hope everyone is enjoying working through Room 1,
karem

University Protests - Violence and Politics

You might have noticed how much of the coverage of the student demonstration that took place in London yesterday is focusing on how a few bad people caused (illegitimate) violence which in some way "ruined" the event for the tens of thousands of (legitimate?) peaceful protest.
It's worth following this debate and seeing where it goes. Behind it are important questions about the proper role of violence in politics - does violence mark the break-down of legitimate political action, or is, as we'll see Franz Fanon arguing later in the course, violence an integral part of politics and of political struggles? What counts as violence? Is smashing a window politically legitimate in a way that attacking people is not?
These are all questions you might wish to ponder after the last 24hrs. We'll be talking about these questions in Room 5, so you might also want to save any interesting articles or news clippings. If you find anything you think is particularly good, I'd be very grateful to hear about it.
Happy pondering!
Tom

1st Tutorial - Tom

Entry Room Tutorial Notes

We started out by discussing the different ways that ideas can be political – making use of the “What Makes ideas political?” audio. This was a way into thinking about the role of political ideas in the Cold War. As I’m afraid I said rather more times than was strictly necessary – in this Room, the Cold War offers us a way into thinking about political ideas. The room, therefore, is not strictly speaking about the Cold War – it’s about using the Cold War as a case study for thinking about political ideas.

This is what we then went on to do by discussing the range of political ideas present in the work of Stimson, Gaddis and Keylor. One of the broad conclusions of this was that - using the definition laid out in “What Makes Ideas Political?” - political ideas are a feature of all the three interpretations of the Cold War, not simply the one that emphasizes ideology. We picked out several examples of political ideas in each text.

We then went on to look at Fukuyama – focusing first on what Fukuyama takes the end of the cold war to mean for political ideas. Towards the end of the session we broadened the discussion to an assessment of whether Fukuyama is correct about his end of ideology claim.