Brooklyn College
Department of Political Science
Spring 2003
Gregg Miller
Core Studies 3: People, Power, Politics
Core Studies 3 will introduce students to fundamental concepts and analytical tools in the social sciences. The aim is to encourage critical thinking about the nature of power and the way that power manifests itself in contemporary society. Core Studies 3 presents students with a variety of viewpoints to encourage students to come to their own conclusions about how power operates and circulates, how it creates advantages and disadvantages for individuals and groups. Readings and assignments are structured to give students the opportunity to examine critically the operations of power in American society, including the dynamics of class, race, and gender. Seyla Benhabib, a contemporary political theorist, has written recently the following:
Complex modern democratic societies since the Second World War face the task of securing three public goods. These are legitimacy, economic welfare, and a viable sense of collective identity. These are 'goods' in the sense that their attainment is considered worthy and desirable by most members of such societies; furthermore, not attaining one or a combination thereof would cause problems in the functioning of these societies such as to throw them into crises. ("Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy," in Democracy and Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996) 67.)
Core Studies 3 aims to understand how such 'public goods'--legitimacy, economic welfare, and collective identity-- are determined by and in turn delimit the conceptual field in which power plays and in which citizenship matters.
Requirements
Your final grade will be determined by the following:
Attendance/participation (10%)
One 2-3 page essay (10%)
Two in-class exams (40%)
One in-class final exam (40%)
Required Texts
1. People, Power and Politics (10th Edition) (PPP)
2. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
3. Course Packet. (CP)
Reading Schedule
1. Classic Liberalism: John Locke, The Second Treatise on Government.
**Take-Home Essay
2. Economic liberalism: Adam Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations (CP)
3. Marxism
Karl Marx, The Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts (PPP 68-75, and CP
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (PPP, 76-94)
**In Class Exam #1
4. Max Weber on authority, status and class
Max Weber, "Postscript: The Concepts of Status Groups and Classes," (PPP, 155-157
Table on Authority Structures (CP)
Max Weber, Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. (PPP, 142-154)
5. Pluralism, Republicanism
James Madison, Federalist Paper #10 (PPP, 25-29)
James Madison, Federalist Paper #51 (PPP, 31-33)
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (PPP, 37- 64)
6. Race / Class
W.E.B. Du Bois,"The Souls of Black Folk" (CP)
W.E.B. Du Bois, "Black Reconstruction in America," (PPP, 200-225)
Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet" (CP)
Patricia Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights. (CP)
Helen Zia, "To Market, To Market, New York Style." (PPP, 358-373)
**In Class Exam #2
7. Class
William Graham Sumner, "What the Social Classes Owe Each Other." (PPP 128-133)
C. Wright Mills, White Collar (PPP, 248-266)
Studs Terkel, Working (CP)
Film: Roger & Me
8. Class / Gender
Emma Goldman, "Marriage and Love" and "Woman Suffrage" (PPP, 160-168)
Nancy Fraser, "After the Family Wage." (CP)
Cherríe Moraga, "La Güera," (PPP 332-337)
**Final Exam