300452 Power, State and Society (MA Pol Soz) (S) (SoSe 2022)

What is power? How to make sense of it? Posing the question in such ambiguous terms, this course’s objective is to explore the phenomenon of power through a survey of multiple conditions of emergence. Understanding the ways in which power self-manifests, at times tangibly expressed and at other times rather elusive and slippery, enables us to broaden our intellectual horizon and critical thinking. Hence, power is arguably one of the most important topics in political science. It is also one of the most controversial ones. While for some political philosophers, power is a limiting, repressing, constraining, and punishing force, for others, it represents a productive and cultivating force, thereby forging society. While for some political thinkers, power is acquired, maintained, lost or reclaimed, for others it is ubiquitous, all-encompassing and embodied, to a degree that it shapes our very perception of reality itself.

We embark together on the following objectives:
1. To understand how the concept of power is conceptualized and deployed across the canon of political theory.
2. To recognize how concepts of power may produce and reproduce ideas of gender, sexuality, nationality, etc.
3. To improve skills in analytical, interpretive, and critical reading and writing.
4. To enhance our political vocabularies so that we may bring these to bear on contemporary political issues and participate thoughtfully in public deliberation.
5. To gain an appreciation for, and actively practice, political theoretical critique as an enterprise that entails valuing as well as challenging other theorists’ ideas, premises and contributions.