PLSC 17NIntroduction to Political Theory

3 credits · Political Science · Penn State

This course focuses on the concepts, principles and values used to explain, justify and challenge the organization and use of collective power. It introduces the field of political theory as an intellectual tradition that combines reflection on what political life is and what it should accomplish with investigation of the values manifest through existing political institutions and how those institutions can be best organized to achieve desired outcomes. Through analysis of selected works of major thinkers, beginning with the Ancient Greeks and extending through the contemporary period, students consider questions and problems that philosophers, political leaders and citizens have grappled with for millennia: What is a political community? What is justice? Who is included in the realm of justice? What is the best form of government? What do I owe to the state? What does the state owe to me? What is the proper purpose and scope of government? Students learn to critically engage arguments in canonical texts to understand both how they contributed to debates in their own time and how subsequent theorists and activists have interpreted them to articulate and challenge various forms of exclusion and oppression. Ultimately, students are invited to see political theory as a conversation across time to clarify concepts that are fundamental to the study and practice of politics yet remain contested, such as freedom, equality, democracy and justice, and to distinguish between the legitimate purposes of government and the arbitrary use of power. Through the course students will learn to employ and evaluate political concepts with care and precision so they can participate in that conversation productively as democratic citizens as well as in further study of political theory. Students may not get credit for both PLSC 17N and PLSC 17W