PLSC 550a Contemporary Political Theory Proseminar (Fall, 2002)

Political Science 550a
Proseminar in Contemporary Political Theory

Ian Shapiro
Fall, 2002
 
Monday 1:30 - 3:20 p.m.
Office hours: Wednesday 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Room 105, 124 Prospect Street
Tel: 432-5253; Email: ian.shapiro@yale.edu
 
                This seminar is intended to help students prepare for the contemporary political theory field exam and to do advanced (i.e., dissertation-level) work in political theory. The emphasis is on those sections of the Department’s field exam reading list that deals with theories of democracy, justice, equality, freedom, and power. All books required for the course are available at Bookhaven. Other readings are in a reader at Tyco and on reserve in the Social Science Library
 
            Students will have the option of either writing a paper (topic to be approved by the instructor) or taking a three hour final exam.

 
 
September 9:                Introduction
 
September 16:              John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, chapter I (sections 1-4), chapter II
(sections 11-17), chapter III (sections 20-27, 29-30), chapter IV (section 40), chapter IV (sections 41-43), chapter IX (section 79)
 
September 23:              John Rawls, Political Liberalism, lectures I-IV
           
September 30:              Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, chapters 1-5, 7
(section 1) [suggested: chapter 7, section 2]
                                    Ian Shapiro, “Justice and workmanship in a democracy” (Reader)
 
October 7:                    Iris Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, chs 1-4, 7
 
October 14:                  Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, chs 1-6, 9-12, 14-18.
                                   
October 21:                  Gutmann and Thompson Democracy and Disagreement pp. 1-94 (Reader)
Fishkin, “Reflections on deliberative democracy” (Reader)
Ian Shapiro, The State of Democratic Theory, chapters 1-2 (Reader)  
 
October 28:                  John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness, chs 1-7
Clarissa Hayward, Defacing Power
 
November 4:                Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
chapters XXI-XXII (Reader)
Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market, chs 1,2,4.
Ian Shapiro, The State of Democratic Theory , ch 3 (Reader)
 
November 11:              Amartya Sen, Inequality Reexamined, pp. 1-77
                                    Bernard Williams, “The idea of equality” (Reader)
                                    Ronald Dworkin, “What is equality? Part II” (Reader)
                                    G.A. Cohen, “On the currency of egalitarian justice” (Reader)
 
November 18:              Ian Shapiro, Democratic Justice, chapters 1-4, 6, 8-9 [suggested:
chapters 5 & 7]
 
November 22 – December 1: Fall Recess
 
December 2:                 Symposium on Democratic Justice from Political Economy of the Good Society. Critiques by Georgia Warnke, Nancy Rosenblum, Steven Schiffrin, James Fishkin, Clarissa Hayward, and Iris Young (Reader).
Ian Shapiro, “Revisiting Democratic Justice: A reply to critics”
                        (Reader)