About the course

The course offers the understanding of basic concepts of international politics and political thought through the use of pop culture. The course is divided into two parts. The first part will be devoted to the popular TV show Game of Thrones (2011-2017). It will analyze the concepts of International Relations and International Political Economy, such as power, ideas, alliances, cooperation, war, economy, and various models of social orders based on the main characters and important events that take place in the TV show. The second part will explore the key ideas of political thought such as revolution, statehood, capitalism, Marxism, social contract and nature of human development on the basis of a number of movies and TV Shows including Star Trek (1966-2017), House of Cards (2013-2017), The Experiment (2001), Snowpiercer (2013), Ex Machina (2014) and the Matrix (1999).

WARNING
The majority of the media content which is included in the course has an “R” rating and depicts the scenes of extreme violence, sexual harassment, abusive and racist language and other disturbing content. If you are easily offended, please do not take this course.

Readings:
Dunne, Timothy, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, eds. 2013. International relations theories: Discipline and diversity / edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki and Steve Smith. Third edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sachleben, Mark. 2014. World politics on screen: Understanding international relations through popular culture. Lexington Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.

Political protest and social movements are today pervasive features of contemporary societies. Social movement politics have become increasingly routinized and an institutionalized element of contemporary politics. In this course, we will take a closer look at political protests with a special focus on transnational and European protests. Are we witnessing a Europeanization of social movements? Does protest in Europe address European issues? Or does it merely use the European stage to influence national policy processes?
The course will start with an assessment of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. We will then focus on recent protest mobilizations and try to answer the question to which extend we witness a Europeanization of protest, and where and when social movements were able to influence policy-making at the European level.

About the course

The course offers the understanding of basic concepts of international politics and political thought through the use of pop culture. The course is divided into two parts. The first part will be devoted to the popular TV show Game of Thrones (2011-2017). It will analyze the concepts of International Relations and International Political Economy, such as power, ideas, alliances, cooperation, war, economy, and various models of social orders based on the main characters and important events that take place in the TV show. The second part will explore the key ideas of political thought such as revolution, statehood, capitalism, Marxism, social contract and nature of human development on the basis of a number of movies and TV Shows including Star Trek (1966-2017), House of Cards (2013-2017), The Experiment (2001), Snowpiercer (2013), Ex Machina (2014) and the Matrix (1999).

WARNING
The majority of the media content which is included in the course has an “R” rating and depicts the scenes of extreme violence, sexual harassment, abusive and racist language and other disturbing content. If you are easily offended, please do not take this course.

Readings:
Dunne, Timothy, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, eds. 2013. International relations theories: Discipline and diversity / edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki and Steve Smith. Third edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sachleben, Mark. 2014. World politics on screen: Understanding international relations through popular culture. Lexington Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.

Large socio-economic transformations such as de-industrialisation, globalisation, and immigration and the resulting economic and cultural conflicts have long had a prominent place in the public spotlight, and have become even more prominent topics of discussion in the wake of the UK's Brexit-vote, the 2016 US Presidential Election, and the rise of right-wing populism across Europe. In this course, we will study whether and how these transformations are working to undermine social solidarity and the political support for egalitarian policies and their political advocates, and develop new ideas and hypotheses on the future of progressive policies and parties. To this end, we will read and discuss political and social research on citizens' attitudes toward the welfare state and social inequality, on the drivers of these attitudes, and on how these attitudes are taken up and translated into policies through parties, party competition, and political institutions.

You will achieve three main learning outcomes: 1) Acquire an overview over past and current scholarship on popular attitudes toward the welfare state and their drivers as well as on the mechanics of political representation and party competition; 2) Practise empirical analyses (of survey data); 3) Develop and refine your paper writing skills.

The paramount requirement is that you contribute to your own learning progress and the course as a whole by formulating and refining your own ideas and hypotheses. This includes 1) active participation in seminar discussions; 2) a research paper of limited length (4000 words) that develops and empirically tests, quantitatively or qualitatively, one or more hypotheses; 3) one brief oral presentation of the readings assigned for one session; 4) a brief discussion of another student's presentation based on a short (600 words) written reflection; 5) two discussion questions related to the assigned readings.

This seminar will address the relationship between social class and gender-based forms of stratification in modern societies and in historical perspective. Overall, the question of interest is why the inequalities at the intersection of class and gender in paid and unpaid work persist across industrialized societies despite some impressive policy achievements over the past half century. The primary literature source will be the book “Gender-Class Equality in Political Economies”. In this book, Lynn Prince Cooke places gender inequality in a context that is historically shaped by the intersections of multiple inequalities and the particularities of six countries: Germany (East and West), Spain, Australia, the UK and the US. Gender-class inequalities persist in paid work hours, wages, and the division of housework. The study shows how values, choices, and behaviors of individual men and women in various national contexts are enabled and constrained by state policies that effectively structure relative group advantage and disadvantage from birth through old age.