Course Code: POLS 4001
Academic Year: 2026-2027
What is power? When is authority legitimate? What guarantees the rights and liberties of the individual? What is the role and function of the State? What is the purpose of civil disobedience? How does a society become more, or less, democratic? Drawing from the writings of a variety of pivotal political thinkers, this course introduces students to a range of important social and political questions and controversies fiercely debated since the dawn of the modern age. From a critical perspective, students examine a variety of topics and themes including the nature of the political; society and the State; democracy and equality; private property and class struggle; the origin of feminism and resistances to colonialism.