Face-to-face , first term, 22,5 hours of theory.

First term
Thursday from 17:00 to 18:30 at 119 Marais 1100

French

This is an introductory course. It aims to introduce both to what are the current political phenomena and, especially, to the way political science deals with them in order to obtain general theories about them.

Given the limited number of hours, the course primarily aims to initiate the students to a fundamental political analysing framework, enabling them to understand the structural frameworks in which current political phenomena develop.

From a practical point of view, the aim is that by the end of the course, the students have acquired the intellectual mastery of a certain number of conceptual categories, reasoning modes and theoretical theses, which sustain this fundamental political analysing frame. At the examination (see “assessment”), the students will be asked to prove that they are able to put them into practice appropriately in a political analysis of political phenomena, which will not necessarily have been discussed in class.

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The course is divided into four main parts, each one corresponding to a classic, fundamental concept of current political science: Politics/Politicisation, Power, State, Democracy. In the analysis of each concept and the reality to which it refers, we will demonstrate, on the one hand, what makes the specificity of political phenomena in regards to other social phenomena and, on the other hand, what makes the specificity of Western contemporary political phenomena compared to political phenomena taking place in other geopolitical contexts or that occurred in earlier times.

The course will also provide the opportunity to specify the scope of other usual notions of political sciences such as civil society, international organisation, nation, supra-statism, federalism… It will also enable to study a number of reference theories of contemporary political science (the Lipest and Rokkan's theory on cleavages and the political parties, that of Max Weber on political domination or that of Bernard Manin on representative democracy).
Finally it aims to initiate the students to a reflection on some major political stakes of our time (the role played by the approaches in the initiation and orientation of a public action, the relativisation of the centrality of the State in the contemporary organisation of the human government, the tension between the will of the people and reason in Western political regimes, etc.).
Throughout the course, many examples out of the news will be used to illustrate and help understand the theoretical elements, which are central to the mastery of the subject matter.

Ex cathedra presentations based on a handbook entitled Fondements de science politique (Brussels, De Boeck, 2014) whose the professor is co-author. The book will be buyed at the Reprography. A list of the specific developments of the handbook (chapters, sections, paragraphs…) which are part of the course content will be consultable on the course website, as well as a list with the specific theoretical elements (concepts, author's thesis…) which are (exclusively) likely to be object of a question of examination in the present academic year

In class, slides will be projected to help students assimilate the subject matter correctly. These slides will include either simplified representations (outlines, tables, diagrams) of elements developed in a literary manner in the handbook, or supports to the development of general trends or examples presented in class (statistical data, extracts from official texts, etc.).
A hard copy of the slides used will be buyed at the Reprography.

Finally, the website includes a series of questions and answers of examinations from previous years as well as a number of exercices to help students to be well prepared to the course examination.

The assessment is a written examination lasting 2 hours. It includes 4 questions, which will all be marked out of 10 points. The total points are then divided by 2, to obtain a final mark out of 20 points.

The examination will include a question for each of the 4 main parts of the course. All the questions will invite the students to analyse, in the correct manner from a political point of view, concrete cases, which will not necessarily have been studied in class, by using adequately the general elements of knowledge, which will have been developed in class. Of course, each question statement will include all the elements of factual knowledge of these concrete cases necessary to analyse it correctly.

The last session of the course will be devoted to providing the students with more precise information on the examination proceedings as well as on the most appropriate way to prepare for it.

No more compulsory reading other than the pertinent sections of the handbook referenced above are requested. Selected bibliography for students who would like to go further is included in the handbook.

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