Postgraduate Module Descriptor

POLM156: The Transformation of Politics in the Global Age

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following:

  • The idea of politics and the political in modern times
  • The emergence and consolidation of the nation-state as the main context for politics
  • Issues of sovereignty, democracy and governance in the nation-state context
  • Multi-level governance and the politics delegation as challenges to democratic governance
  • The crisis of representative politics and new forms of representation
  • The multicultural challenge to the nation state: how to reconcile equality and difference
  • The global challenge: mobility, borders and people in the contemporary political community
  • Global governance and cosmopolitan democracy

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
222780

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities2211 x 2 hour per week seminars including small group work, presentations, and class discussion
Guided Independent Study155Reading
Guided Independent Study35Presentation Preparation
Guided Independent Study88Essay Writing

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

ELE - ( vle.exeter.ac.uk )

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Max Weber, Politics as Vocation; Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political; Anthony Smith, The Ethnic origins of nations (Blackwell, 1986)

David Miller, On nationality (OUP, 1995); S. Caney, D. George and P. Jones (eds) National Rights, International Obligations (Westview Press, 1996)

Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Polity, 1997)

Amy Gutman and Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism (Princeton UP, 1992)

Alan Patten, Equal Recognition (2015); Brian Barry, Culture and Equality (2000)

Hannah Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (1967)

Michael Saward, The Representative Claim (2012)

Margaret Canovan, The People (2005)

I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordon (eds) Democracy's Edges (CUP, 1999)

D. Archibugi, D. Held and M. Kohler (eds), Re-imagining political community (Polity, 1997)

C. Brown (ed), Political restructuring in Europe (Routledge, 1994)

Philippe Schmitter, How to democratize the European Union (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000)

Claus Offe, Europe Entrapped (2015)

Archibugi, Daniele, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens (2008)

John Keane, Global Civil Society? (2010)                                                              

William Scheuerman, Liberal Democracy and the Social Acceleration of Time (2004)