UCL - Political Science

[ESPO1114]

[30h] 5 credits

Teacher(s): André-Paul Frognier, Jacques Herman

Language: French

Level: First

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

The course must allow the student to be familiarized with basic theoretical problems, orientations and conceptual apparatus of political science.

Main themes

This introduction to the discipline will refer to concrete questions a political science student is asking to himself, and more generally, any citizen who tries to understand how the political and the civil spheres are organized. What is political action, politics, a policy? What is the meaning of power? What is legitimate power? What is a political system? What is democracy? Which are the principal collective actors of the political system (political parties, special interest groups)? Which are the values, materialists and "post materialists", of the citizens? What about political participation of the citizens? Which are the principal determinants of the vote? Is there a citizenship's crisis?

Content and teaching methods

A. The concept of political power. Political science at the crossroads of the social sciences. Political action: violence and conflict, order and rule, the State or the institutionalization of power. Semantic field of the concept of power, materialist and praxiolological paradigms of power, authority-dominance-sovereignty-legitimacy. Democracy: from anarchy to democracy, direct, representative, participative democracy. B. The civil society: political parties and interest groups. Parties and systems of parties. Special interest groups. The civil society: citizens. Political values. Political participation. Electoral behavior. Rebellions and revolutions.

Method
Lectures.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Other informations
Evaluation: written exam (QCM).
Support: syllabus.