Course Outline

Course Summary:

As the writer George Orwell pointed out many years ago, the term "democracy" has been used so frequently for political purposes that now it hardly serves to identify a unique form of society. In this course we will attempt to reclaim the idea of democracy, which has taken on great importance in recent decades, even though it often seems more obscured by ideology than it was in Orwell's day. In the first part of the course we examine the most influential arguments behind a) representative and b) republican theories of democracy, and look at a selection of recent writings which develop these arguments in up to date contexts. In the second part of the course we examine a series of challenges emerging from debates about civil disobedience, individual rights, multiculturalism, gender equality, and philosophical anarchism.

Format:

The course involves both lectures and class discussion. Participation is strongly encouraged. Students would greatly benefit from reading the assigned material (as posted on the reading schedule below) before coming to each lecture.

Evaluation:



Critical essay - Due Oct. 16 in class. (30%)


Critical essay - Due Nov. 7 in class. (30%)


Final exam - Scheduled during exam period. (40%)



The first critical essay (assigned in mid- to late September) will involve a comparison between the two basic ideas of democracy examined in the first part of the course. The second essay (assigned in mid-October) will require students to carefully describe, and defend a solution to, one of the challenges to democratic governance examined in the second part. Students who choose to prepare a draft essay in advance of the due date should feel free to give the draft to me for comments and suggestions. Late essays will lose 5% per day (without appropriate reasons). The final exam will involve a series of short-answer questions touching upon the major lines of thought covered during the term. Specifics will be discussed approximately one month prior to the exam date.

Statement on Plagiarism:

All course work deemed to be in violation of Queen's policies on academic honesty will be handled according to the procedures set out in the A&SS calendar, where Queen's defines plagiarism as; "submitting an essay written in whole or in part by someone else as one's own, preparing an essay or assignment for submission by another student, copying an essay or assignment, or knowingly allowing one's essay or assignment to be copied by someone else for the purposes of plagiarism, using direct quotations or large sections of paraphrased material without acknowledgement, buying or selling of term papers or assignments and submitting them as one's own for the purpose of plagiarism, submitting the same piece of work in more than one course without the permission of the instructor(s)"

Texts:

There are two required textbooks for the course, plus a series of required readings kept at the P&CC. There are two options for copying the P&CC package: readings can be requested and copied one by one inside the P&CC, or they can be purchased already copied and bound (for an extra charge) in a course pack. If it is necessary to obtain additional readings later in the term, the new readings will be left at the P&CC. From time to time I will make reference to the suggested readings, but these are primarily meant to be helpful as background and you are not expected to purchase them. A library reserve list contains each of our texts for use inside the library. The course texts are:

Required: Michael Rosen & Jonathan Wolff, Political Thought. (Oxford UP, 1999).

Required: Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Second Edition, (Oxford UP, 2002).

Required: Course Readings from P&CC

Suggested: Bernard Crick, Democracy: A Very Short Introduction. (Oxford UP 2002)

Suggested: Zachary Seech, Writing Philosophy Papers. Third Canadian Edition (Wadsworth, 2000).

On the schedule below:
Rosen & Wolff's Political Thought = R&W
Kymlicka's Contemporary Political Philosophy = KYM
Course readings at P&CC = P&CC