HUMAN, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES TRIPOS

Part IIB Options BookletPolitics and International

Relations2016-17

Students must return preliminary paper choices byWednesday 1st June 2016

Department of Politics and International StudiesEmail: Polis-ugadmin@lists.cam.ac.uk

www.polis.cam.ac.uk

In this booklet you will find information on the available POLIS papers for Part IIB of the Tripos. If you have any queries please contact your Director of Studies

in the first instance.

Table of ContentsPart IIB 2016-17: Paper Titles Available.................................................................................................1

Politics and International Relations...................................................................................................1

Other HSPS Subjects..........................................................................................................................2

Paper Combinations..............................................................................................................................4

Politics and International Relations Paper Descriptions........................................................................5

POL6: Statistics and Methods in politics and international relations.................................................5

POL9: Conceptual Issues and Texts in Politics and International Relations.......................................5

POL10: The History of Political Thought from c.1700-c.1890............................................................6

POL11: Political Philosophy & the History of Political Thought Since c.1890.....................................6

POL12: The Politics of the Middle East..............................................................................................7

POL13: The Politics of Europe............................................................................................................7

POL14: The Politics of Asia.................................................................................................................8

POL15: The Politics of Africa..............................................................................................................8

POL16: Conflict and Peacebuilding....................................................................................................9

POL17: Politics and Gender...............................................................................................................9

POL18: The Idea of a European Union...............................................................................................9

POL19: China in the International Order.........................................................................................10

Paper 6: States between states (Historical Tripos)..........................................................................10

Paper 7 & Paper 10 (History and Philosophy of Science Tripos)......................................................11

Administrators.....................................................................................................................................13

Part IIB 2016-17: Paper Titles Available

Politics and International Relations

POL6 Statistics and methods in politics and international relations

POL9 Conceptual Issues and Texts in Politics and International Relations

POL10 The History of Political Thought from c.1700-1890

POL11 Political Philosophy & the History of Political Thought since c.1890

POL12 The Politics of the Middle East

POL13 The Politics of Europe

POL14 The Politics of Asia

POL15 The Politics of Africa

POL16 Conflict and Peacebuilding

POL17 Politics and Gender

POL18 The Idea of a European Union

POL19 China in the International Order

Paper 6 States between states: The history of international political thought from the Roman Empire to the early nineteenth century (Historical Tripos)

Paper 7 Ethics and Politics of Science, Technology and Medicine (History and Philosophy of Science Tripos)

Paper 10 Human and Behavioural Sciences (History and Philosophy of Science Tripos)

Dissertation Up to 10,000 words on a topic chosen by the student

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Other HSPS Subjects: Please see advice from the corresponding departments regarding these papers.

Archaeology:

ARC8 Archaeological science I

ARC9 Archaeological science II

ARC10/BAN3 Human Evolution and Palaeolithic Archaeology

ARC11/BAN9 Special Topics in Palaeolithic Archaeology and Human Evolution

ARC12 European prehistory

ARC18 Society and Settlement in Ancient Egypt

ARC20 Archaeology of Religion in Ancient Egypt

ARC22 Mesopotamian Archaeology I: prehistory and early states

ARC25 Mesopotamian culture II: Religion and Scholarship

ARC26 The North Sea in the Early Middle Ages

ARC29 Ancient India I: the Indus civilization and beyond

ARC32 The Archaeology of Mesoamerica and North America

ARC33 The Archaeology of Africa

Biological Anthropology:

BAN2 Behavioural ecology and adaption

BAN3/ARC10 Human Evolution and Palaeolithic Archaeology

BAN4 Theory and Practice in biological anthropology

BAN6 Evolution within our species

BAN7 Culture and behaviour

BAN8 Health and disease

BAN9/ARC11 Special Topics in Palaeolithic Archaeology and Human Evolution

Social Anthropology:

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SAN8 Anthropology and Development

SAN10 The Anthropology of Post-Socialist Societies

SAN11 Anthropology of Visual and Media Culture

Sociology:

SOC5 Statistics and methods

SOC6 Advanced social theory

SOC7 Media, Culture and Society

SOC8 Revolution, War and Militarism

SOC9 Modern Capitalism

SOC10 Gender

SOC11 Racism, Race and Ethnicity

SOC12 Modern Britain

SOC13 Health, Medicine and Society

SOC14 The Sociology of education

SOC15 Criminology, sentencing and the Penal system

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Paper Combinations

Paper choice rules for Part IIB Politics and International Relations track

(i) POL9;(ii) two papers chosen from POL10-191, one of which may be substituted by a

dissertation;(iii) either one paper chosen from ARC8-332, BAN2-4, BAN 6-9, SAN8-13, SOC6-153,

Paper7, Paper 10 for the subject History and Philosophy of Science in Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos, or Paper 6 borrowed from Part II of the Historical Tripos or a further paper chosen from POL6, POL10-191.

Paper choice rules for Part IIB Politics and Sociology joint track

(i) two papers chosen from POL6, POL10-191;(ii) two papers chosen from SOC5-155;(iii) a candidate may substitute for one paper a dissertation.

Paper choice rules for Part IIB Social Anthropology and Politics joint track

(i) two papers from POL6, POL10-191;(ii) one paper chosen from SAN5 and SAN6, and one paper chosen from SAN5-134;(iii) a candidate may substitute for one paper a dissertation on a subject approved by

the Head of Department of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Students will have chosen a stream in their second year. They are not permitted to switch tracks between Part IIA and Part IIB unless they switch from a joint track to a single track

(for example: Pol/Soc Part IIA to PolIR Part IIB)

1 Paper POL10 cannot be taken if POL8 was taken in Part IIa2 Paper ARC9 can only be taken at Part IIb if a candidate has taken Paper ARC8 at Part IIa3 Paper SOC6 can only be taken if SOC2 was taken at Part IIa4 Paper SAN7 cannot be taken unless the candidate is also taking SAN5 or SAN65 Paper SOC5 cannot be taken if a candidate is also taking POL6

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Politics and International Relations Paper Descriptions

POL6: Statistics and Methods

This paper introduces students to statistical methods used in the social sciences, illustrates how these methods can be used to study important political issues, and gives students hands-on experience on using these methods and writing up the results of empirical research. The introductory module sets the scene through a general overview of the use of statistical methods in the study of politics and international relations. The two main modules teach students how to use and interpret these methods. The first module covers basic statistical methods such as descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, multivariate linear regression and logistical regression. These methods are illustrated through examples from sociological and political research. The second module revisits and extends these methods, and particularly applies them to important issues and datasets in the study of politics and IR. It ends with a discussion of how the availability of 'big data' may be affecting the quantitative analysis of politics. This paper will give students useful skills for conducting social science research, which are also essential for various career options in the public and private sector. There may be some opportunities for internships in these sectors for students who have taken this paper.

Selected readings:

Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot, 'The numbers game: statistics and politics', Open Democracy (8 Oct 2007) (https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the_numbers_game_statistics_and_politics)Peter John, 'Quantitative methods', in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds), Theory and methods in political science (3rd ed) (Palgrave, 2010) [Chapter 13]Roger Tarling, Statistical modelling for social researchers: Principles and practice (Routledge, 2009) [esp. Chapters 1 and 2]

POL9: Conceptual Issues and Texts in Politics and International Relations

This is solely an examination paper. Candidates are required to answer one question from a choice of eight: four inviting discussion of an unseen and unattributed text in politics or international relations, and four inviting answers to general questions. POL9 gives candidates the opportunity to think about different kinds of general questions in politics and international relations, and to use the knowledge and understanding they have acquired to reflect on these and develop arguments of their own at length. The paper is set to avoid advantaging or disadvantaging any particular choice of papers elsewhere in Part II. Some questions can be answered from a knowledge of political thought, some from a knowledge

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of international or domestic politics; most will encourage candidates to connect the two. There are classes for the paper in the Lent term.

POL10: The History of Political Thought from c.1700-c.1890

Beginning with the Enlightenment and extending from the American and French revolutions to the wave of revolutions in 1848 and the challenge of capitalism in the thought of Karl Marx, this paper explains the formation of the fundamental concepts of modern politics. The line between the sacred and the civil, the relation between liberty and commerce, the transformations in the principles of political legitimacy which led to the notion of the modern representative republic, the nineteenth-century rise of the idea of the nation-states and nationalism, the modern concept of empire, the demand for gender equality: all these and more form the content of this paper.

Selected readings:

ed. Sylvana Tomaselli , Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, (Cambridge, 1995).István Hont, Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith (Cambridge, Mass., 2015).

POL11: Political Philosophy & the History of Political Thought Since c.1890

This paper explores the central texts and key ideas of twentieth century political thought, looking at both analytical concepts and historical context. It provides the opportunity to trace the development of political ideas into the twentieth century and into contemporary political philosophy. This includes many ideas that students will have encountered in other contexts – freedom, democracy, revolution, equality, international relations and global justice – as well as some ideas that may be new or less familiar – for instance, ecology, punishment or welfare. It also provides an opportunity to explore the history of political thought and political philosophy more generally and to consider what studying politics historically or theoretically brings to our understanding of politics in practice.

The paper is divided into two parts, Section A covering a number of historical topics, Section B a variety of themes in contemporary political philosophy. It is possible to concentrate on one side or other of the paper, but students will be required to answer at least one question from each section. Like the earlier History of Political Thought Papers, Section A encourages contextual study of key political texts. This section introduces students to important thinkers such as Nietzsche, Weber, Hayek or Rawls; to developments in the Marxist and liberal traditions of political thought; and to significant political debates, such as those accompanying the crisis of the Weimar Republic, or the emergence of American political science. Section B, however, introduces students to the practice of contemporary political philosophy. Through the study of themes such as feminism, postcolonialism, property or sovereignty, students will learn how to construct philosophical arguments in critical dialogue with a range of contemporary and classic thinkers.

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So this is a varied paper that offers a chance to explore some familiar ideas in more detail or in more contemporary contexts; to encounter new ideas; and to reflect on what political philosophy means for the study of politics in the round.

Selected readings:

For Section A) T. Ball and R. Bellamy (eds.) The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge, 2003) [available at www.histories.cambridge.org] For Section B) W. Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction 2nd ed. (Oxford 2001).

POL12: The Politics of the Middle East

This paper, on the politics and international relations of the modern Middle East and contemporary Islam, is based around three sets of themes. The first section explores the nature and causes of political change in the Middle East, with a focus on understanding and critically examining the literature on state formation, democratisation, and political economy. The second section is on Muslim societies, through an account of the politics of institutions, law and gender in the Muslim world. The third section is on security and international relations, developing an approach to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict, and analysing the force and limits of external influence in the region. The first and third sections cover the Arab states, Iran, Israel and Turkey, whilst the second section looks beyond the Middle East as well as at Muslim minority states. In addition, there will be sets of lectures focusing on the politics of specific themes of present-day relevance: in 2015-16, there were case studies on the new politics of sectarianism in Syria and Iraq, and on Turkish politics and regional policy. Students will be encouraged to study one of these cases in depth as part of the paper. The paper builds upon the POL 4 option on Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and knowledge of those two countries is presupposed in the teaching. Those who did not study this option will be at a disadvantage if they take this paper.

Selected readings:

Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: A History (London: Penguin, 2nd edition, 2012)Asef Bayat, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010)

POL13: The Politics of Europe

European politics has always been a vibrant subject, and has clearly been in considerable flux in recent years. In fact, the word ‘crisis’ is frequently used to describe various aspects of European politics – examples include the ‘crisis of the post-war settlement’, the ‘crisis of the welfare state’, the ‘crisis of political parties’, the ‘Eurozone crisis’, and most recently the ‘migration crisis’. How can we understand the causes and possible consequences of these developments?This paper examines the politics of Europe from a number of perspectives in order to help students think about these questions. The paper consists of three modules, of which students choose two:1. British Politics. This module explores political developments in the UK since 1945, including the rise of Thatcherism and New Labour, economic policy and the welfare state, devolution and constitutional reform, and changes in electoral behaviour up to the 2015 general election.

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2. Contemporary Issues in Western European Politics. This module looks at important issues in the politics of Western European states: economic policy and the politics of austerity, immigration and the integration of migrants, decentralisation and territorial movements, challenges to the welfare state, and the current transformation of Western European states.3. European Integration. This module examines several fundamental and contested aspects of the process of European integration, such as the nature of the European Union, the distribution of power within and political mobilisation against the EU, monetary integration and its problems, EU enlargement, and the EU’s role in international affairs.The paper will enable students to engage critically with the scholarly literature in these fields and to develop a comparative perspective on British and European politics.

Selected readings:

Tony Judt, Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945 (London: Pimlico, 2005)Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The office and its holders since 1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2000) Chris Bickerton, The European Union: A citizen's guide (London: Penguin, 2016)

POL14: The Politics of Asia

This paper approaches the study of Asian politics using cases from South and Southeast Asia to raise themes and issues that might productively be applied across a broader geographic area, and across Asian regions. These issues include dynamics of state formation and institution-building, ethnic and religious identities, economic trajectories, development and capitalism, political change and continuity. We will also explore the varied legacies of colonialism, postcolonial state formation, geopolitics, and neo-liberalism. Lectures will take place in two streams, covering the history and politics of South and Southeast Asia; students will also have the opportunity to participate in seminar-style meetings in addition to supervisions.

Selected readings:

Osborne, Milton. Southeast Asia: An introductory history. (Allen & Unwin 11th edition 2013).Bose, Sugata and Ayesha Jalal : Modern South Asia. History, culture and political economy. (Routledge, 3rd edition, 2011).

POL15: The Politics of Africa

This paper explores the interaction of local and international factors that have influenced social, economic and political trajectories in Africa. The first part considers the history of state formation on the continent, looking at pre-colonial and colonial systems of rule, the ideologies and strategies of anti-colonial struggle, and their legacies in turbulent post-independence politics. It considers practices and ideas of political authority, mobilisation and legitimacy are it weights up alternative lens on post-colonial African experiences, namely ethno-linguistic, religious and class analyses. The second part addresses the encounter between African governments and societies and the ideologies and practices of 'international development, security, human rights and peacebuilding'. It pays particular attention to interventions by Western aid donors and NGOs designed to promote liberal states, economic policies, polities, societies and individual subjectivities, considering the aims and limits of these projects, African resistance to and negotiation with them, and the recent emergence of Chinese and other 'South-South' alternatives. The course encourages students to think about how

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discourses on 'Africa' relate to the economic, strategic and ideological projects of those who shape and deploy them. While the course is taught thematically, students develop case study knowledge of the diverse range of African countries' experiences through essays and seminars.

Selected readings:

Harrison, Graham, Issues in the Contemporary Politics of Sub-Saharan Africa, (Palgrave, London, 2002)Clapham, Christopher, Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival (Cambridge University Press, 1996)

POL16: Conflict and Peacebuilding

This paper explores issues of conflict and peacebuilding in contemporary international politics, with a particular focus on conflict in developing countries. It considers competing theories and claims about the causes of conflict and the relationship between conflict, development, and other international processes. It analyses the range of responses to conflict and how they are justified, and also focuses on contests over the meanings and practices of peacebuilding. The possibilities and limitations of international institutions, including the United Nations, in ending conflict and maintaining peace are highlighted throughout the paper. The paper will include at least two detailed case studies (countries/ regions to be confirmed). Part of the paper will be taught collaboratively with the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Tokyo, and the National University of Singapore, with on-line international assignments and discussions.

Selected readings:

David Keen, Complex Emergencies (London: Polity, 2007)Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton University Press, 1985). http://search.lib.cam.ac.uk/?itemid=|eresources|113146

POL17: Politics and Gender

Human security, liberty, political voice, economic status, education, health, freedom of expression, access to markets and public spaces as well as institutional behaviour are all fundamentally shaped by gender. This paper aims to introduce students to the various ways in which different understandings of gender impact on contemporary political debates. Lectures will be structured by six themes: Political Representation, Rights, Inequality, Conflict and Violence, Social Movements and Radical Politics and finally Power and the Body.

Selected readings:

Browne, J., Dialogue, Politics and Gender (Cambridge University Press, 2013)Fraser, N., Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neo-liberal Crisis (Verso, 2014) Sjoberg, L. Gender, War and Conflict (Polity Press, 2014)

POL18: The Idea of a European Union

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This political thought paper explores three hundred years of argument—from the eighteenth-century debate involving Rousseau and the Abbé de Saint-Pierre down to the present day—over the feasibility and desirability of some kind of project of European political unification. Its aim is to re-embed proposals for European union in broader narratives of the history of political thought—especially those that concern the nature of the modern state form, international political theory, nationalism, religion, international law, and political economy—so that we can begin to understand the arguments that were offered as serious political interventions in contemporary controversies, rather than merely as exercises in idle utopianism, or as premonitions of the Union that came to be built in the second half of the twentieth century. The paper will conclude with an examination of theoretical debates around democracy, sovereignty, human rights, and transnational solidarity in today’s European Union, at a critical moment in its existence.

Selected readings:

Perry Anderson, The Old New Europe (London: Verso, 2009), ch. 9 (on ‘Antecedents’).Anthony Pagden, The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

POL19: China in the International Order

This paper provides an application of international relations and international political economy theories to the case study of China’s decline, isolation, and rise in global politics and market over the past century and a half. Reassessing power transition, economic integration, and institution-building theories developed in the Western historical context, the paper prepares students to take a critical view on one of the most systemic shift of our time – the rise of China as the world’s largest economy with great power aspirations. Combining historical and theoretical perspectives, this course will examine major events and issues that have created pressures and opportunities for China’s foreign relations, market expansion, corporate internationalization, military modernization, and influence in international organizations.

Selected readings:

Andrew Nathan and Andrew S Cobell, China’s search for Security (New York: Colombia University Press, 2012)Thomas Christensen, The China Challenge (New York: W.W. Norton, 2015)Aaron Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York; London: W.W Norton, 2011)

Papers Borrowed from other FacultiesPaper 6: States between states: The history of international political thought from the Roman Empire to the early nineteenth century (Historical Tripos)

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What is the ‘political’ in the history of political thought? In his Politics, the Greek philosopher Aristotle understood ta politika – the ‘political things’, politics, of his title – to be those things that concern the polis, the city-state that was the central unit of (precisely) political organisation in ancient Greece. This covered everything from the motivation and rationale of the polis, its constitutional structure, who qualified for citizenship, the nature of its government, to political safety strategies on the one hand and musical education on the other. At its base it involved a narrative about human beings forming into a political community for ends that cannot otherwise be achieved. This narrative, in multiple permutations, has been central to the tradition of Western political thought, and its focus is primarily on the relationship of citizens to fellow-citizens, and citizens to government, within one political unit, what we call ‘the state’. And yet, even in Aristotle’s Politics it is clear that the polis does not exist in isolation. The lives of its citizens demand slaves, who need to be ‘hunted’ abroad. Thus the polis must stretch out into space beyond itself. And it needs goods, which means merchants living within it who are nevertheless not part of it, not citizens. Thus the outside comes in. These inside/outside relations impact on the very theorisation of the polis itself, as Aristotle defines the relationships and laws between citizens against both commercial treaties and military alliances: both of which might look uncomfortably like political relations, but which for Aristotle’s purposes must, crucially, be excluded as such.

The ‘global turn’ in modern political thought, just as in history, has interested itself in both of these dimensions of inside/outside: how the state extends beyond itself into the space of others, and conversely how that extension impacts in turn back on the state itself. From a theoretical point of view, the concept of the ‘political’ itself is stretched and put in question. Both at the level of government and at the level of citizenship, new spaces of politics open up, spaces that we – for a want of vocabulary which is, precisely, part of our intellectual heritage – might call for convenience ‘international’, but which might better be labelled ‘inter-political’ or ‘trans-political’. For the international is merely one, historically specific (and, for some, increasingly passé), way of constructing the space between states: a word with which by now we are familiar and comfortable, but which involves multiple assumptions and disguises dimensions of our political existence which might be less familiar, more exciting, but also less comfortable as well.

In this paper, then, we look historically at the different ways in which this ‘international’ space has been constructed. We begin in ancient Rome, with a word, Imperium, that of itself crosses the inside/out divide, being both a word for ‘internal’ rule and a word for the concrete, ‘external’ extension of rule – the ‘empire’; and we end with intellectual challenges to European conceptions and practices of empire in the early nineteenth century. Importantly, however, the intellectual history of the ‘inter-political’ or ‘international’ is not simply the intellectual history of imperial formations. As the paper shows, this dimension of the history of political thought involves all sorts of ‘inter-political’ concepts, ‘states between states’: unions, federations, confederations, composite monarchies, leagues, alliances, friendly states, hostile states; as well as new spaces of ‘inter-political’ citizenship.

Paper 7: Ethics and Politics of Science, Technology and Medicine (History and Philosophy of Science Tripos)

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Science, technology and medicine play a central role in the modern world. However, there are many on-going political and ethical controversies over the role they ought to play. These include debates over whether, when and how, ethical and political values should shape scientific research and practice, and over when and how scientific results and new technologies should be used. The aim of this paper is to introduce students to both practical and theoretical debates over the politics and ethics of science and to examine their inter-relationships.

Paper 10: Human and Behavioural Sciences (History and Philosophy of Science Tripos)

This paper explores historical and philosophical aspects of the social and psychological sciences, including the character of their subject matters and their methodologies. Amongst the disciplines covered will be psychology, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, economics, political science, anthropology, sociology and history.

NB Descriptions of other HSPS papers can be obtained from the relevant department. Please contact the relevant administrator.

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Administrators

If you have any queries regarding POL papers please contact the POLIS Undergraduate Administrator, Charlotte Moss (Polis-ugadmin@lists.cam.ac.uk)

If you have queries regarding other HSPS subjects, please contact the relevant Administrator:

Archaeology undergraduate-secretary@arch.cam.ac.uk

Biological Anthropology Erica Pramauro emp47@cam.ac.uk

Social Anthropology Dorothy Searle dcs43@cam.ac.uk

Sociology Odette Rogers ohmr3@cam.ac.uk

Faculty Teaching Administrator Barbora Sajfrtova bs481@cam.ac.uk

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