| Week | Topics | Study Materials | Materials |
| 1 |
Introduction and setup
• General overview of the topics, the themes and the readings.
• The state in historical perspective.
• Theories of the state.
• Requirements, mid-term and term-paper.
• Use of the web page.
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Do readings and look at course website
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Reading and materials available on course website.
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| 2 |
The first states
• When, where and why did the first states arise?
• How were the first states organized? Political organization, rituals of legitimation.
• Agriculture and state-formation.
• State-building and architecture.
• What, if anything, is the “Axial Age”?
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Bruce G. Trigger, Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2003. pp. 71-166.
• Karl Jaspers, “The Axial Period,” The Origin and Goal of History. New Haven: Yale Univ.
Press, 1953. pp. 1-22
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| 3 |
Ancient city-states
• The idea of the polis. The polis in historical practice.
• Polis and cosmopolis.
• Thallasocracies of the eastern Mediterranean.
• Greek ideals and the Muslim world
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Crone, Patricia. “Ninth-Century Muslim Anarchists.” Past & Present 167, no. 1 (2000): 3–
28.
• Thucydides, “Pericles’ Funeral Oration,” in The Peloponnesian War (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1985)
• Kostas Vlassopoulos, “Between East and West: The Greek Poleis as Part of a World-
System.” Ancient West and East 6 (2007): 91–111.
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| 4 |
Sovereignty and divine right
•
• Etymology of the word “state.”
• The notion of “sovereignty.” Its implications in early modern Europe and today.
• The notion of “divine right of kings.”
• The rituals and rhetoric of kingship.
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Do readings and look at course website
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Sergio Bertelli, “His Majesty,” in The King’s Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval
and Early Modern Europe. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
• Daniel Philpott, “Sovereignty,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
|
| 5 |
“The well-ordered police state”
• Cameralism and Poliseiwissenschaft in Germanic Europe.
• The idea of welfare, public administration, and rights.
• Enlightened absolutism. French etatism.
• Governmentality.
• Non-European comparisons
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Marc Raeff, “The Well-Ordered Police State and the Development of Modernity in
Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Europe: An Attempt at a Comparative Approach,”
American Historical Review, vol. 80, 1975. pp. 1221-43.
• Jeffreys, Elaine, ed. China’s Governmentalities: Governing Change, Changing Government.
Routledge, 2009.
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| 6 |
Republics
The republican tradition in northern Italy during the Renaissance.
• England as a republic.
• The French revolution and the return of republican thought.
• Republicanism in the United States.
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Pocock, John Greville Agard. “Neo-Machiavellian Political Economy.” In The
Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
• Michael J. Sandel, “Economics and Virtue in the Early Republic.” In Democracy’s
Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1996
|
| 7 |
Nation-states
• The idea of the “nation.”
• National revolutions from 1789 onward.
• Theories of nationalism.
• Nations and nationalism outside of Europe
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Guido Zernatto, “Nation: The History of a Word.” The Review of Politics 6, no. 3 (July 1,
1944): 351–66.
• Benedict Anderson, “Cultural Roots; The Origin of National Consciousness.” In Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, New Edition. London:
Verso, 2006.
• Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983. pp. 22-62
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| 8 |
Nightwatchman states
• The idea of “laissez-faire.”
• The state and economic efficiency.
• Historical development of the state in Great Britain and the United States.
|
Do readings and look at course website
|
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. Vol. 2. 2 vols. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1910.
selections.
• Blaug, Mark. “The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New.” The Journal of
Economic History 23, no. 2 (1963): 151–84.
• Thompson, Noel. “Economic Thought.” In A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain,
edited by Chris Williams (ed.). Wiley-Blackwell, 2004.
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| 9 |
Welfare-states
• The legacy of early modern states. Cameralism and Polizeiwissenschaft.
• Classification of welfare states.
• The welfare state and globalization.
• The Swedish model and welfare state chauvinism.
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Thomas H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class.” In Citizenship and Social Class and
Other Essays, 1–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950.
• Dani Rodrik, “Why Do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?” Journal of
Political Economy 106, no. 5 (October 1998): 997.
• Ov Cristian Norocel, “Populist Radical Right Protectors of the Folkhem : Welfare
Chauvinism in Sweden.” Critical Social Policy, January 5, 2016.
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| 10 |
Developmental states
• The state and economic development.
• The legacy of the Second World War: Germany and Japan.
• Japan and the “tiger economies” of East Asia.
• Developmental states today.
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Johnson, Chalmers A. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy,
1925-1975. Stanford University Press, 1982.
• Chang Ha-Joon. “Kicking Away the Ladder: Neoliberalism and the ‘Real’ History of
Capitalism.” In Developmental Politics in Transition, edited by Chang Kyung-Sup, Ben
Fine, and Linda Weiss. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2012.
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| 11 |
Patrimonial states and military regimes
• Classical patrimonial states.
• Neopatrimonialism.
• Kleptocracies.
• The oil curse.
• Military regimes.
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Pitcher, Anne, Mary H. Moran, and Michael Johnston. “Rethinking Patrimonialism and
Neopatrimonialism in Africa.” African Studies Review 52, no. 1 (April 2009): 125–56.
• Hirschfeld, Katherine. Gangster States : Organized Crime, Kleptocracy and Political
Collapse. International Political Economy Series (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm)). Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015.
• Ross, Michael L. The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of
Nations. Princeton University Press, 2012.
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| 12 |
Failed states”
• “State-building” and “state failure”
• Why do states fail?
• The role of civil society.
• Implications for international politics.
|
Do readings and look at course website
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Brooks, Rosa Ehrenreich. “Failed States, or the State as Failure?” The University of Chicago
Law Review 72, no. 4 (October 1, 2005): 1159–96.
• Ghani, Ashraf, and Clare Lockhart. Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a
Fractured World. Oxford University Press, USA, 2008.
• Mallaby, Sebastian. “The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for
American Empire.” Foreign Affairs 81, no. 2 (March 1, 2002): 2–7
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| 13 |
Final paper seminar
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Do readings and look at course website
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We will meet to discuss your final research papers (5,000 words).
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| 14 |
Final paper seminar
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Do readings and look at course website
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We will meet to discuss your final research papers (5,000 words).
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