Sociology of Political Theories

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

- Overall teaching format: seminar based teaching;

- Privilege a brief lecture or theoretical exposition with student participation in order to ease the overall understanding of certain concepts;

- Active participation through discussion among students so as to analyse the ideas, their consequences and likely implementation to international relations.  

Learning Outcomes

Main learning outcomes:

The curricular unit introduces the students to reference works in the areas of sociology of power and politics, social theory, and political theory and philosophy.

Specific learning outcomes and skills:

- critically problematize the form of production of political ideas;

- identify schools of thought, authors and key concepts in the political domain;

- recognise the impact of certain theoretical-ideological conceptions in contemporary societies and in the regulation of world politics, to capacitate students for an in-depth knowledge and analysis of the political phenomena;

- understand the main clivage points in political thought.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Sociological approach to political theories: politics and power as mutidimensional phenomena.

The relativisation of borders: from the porosity of social realities to complexity in political studies.

Cosmopolitanism, world-system and globalisation. Governance and multilevel clivages.

Social structures of power: macro, meso and micro sociological levels.

Rawl's normative justice and the sociology of social inequality.

From the constitutionalism of the rule of law to the quesitoning of the social state.

Liberal and neo-liberal narratives: critical deconstruction through sociological analysis.

Form of domination and legitimacy in their recent rtransformation. Fear and society.

Contemporary course of recognition politics and the challenges of vulnerabilities.  

Head Lecturer(s)

António Manuel Carvalho Casimiro Ferreira

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Frequency: 50.0%
Individual essays and in-class participation: 50.0%

Bibliography

GIDDENS, Anthony — Sociologia. 5ª ed. Lisboa : Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2007. [BP 316 GID]

HISTORIA de la teoría política. Fernando Vallespín [et al.]. Madrid : Alianza Editorial, 2002-2004. 6 vols. [BP 32 HIS]

HOFFMAN, John ; Paul Graham — Introduction to political theory. Harlow : Pearson/Longman, 2006. [BP 32 HOF]

MOUFFE, Chantal — O regresso do político. Lisboa : Gradiva, 1996. [BP 32 MOU]

RAWLS, John - A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; 2 edition, 1999.