Hello and welcome, friends. My name is Mithilesh
Kumar Jha. I teach Political Science in the
Department of Humanity and Social Sciences,
I I T Guwahati. This semester in the course
I going to offer is Introduction to Political
Theory.
This is an elective course which is open for
U G and P G students of Humanities and Social
Sciences, science students as well as the
engineering students. And there is no prerequisite
for this course.
This course Political Theory is, is an attempt
to, to introduce the students to some of the
key concepts and ideas that shapes the political
discourse in any country or in any society.
And here it is necessary to understand that
these concepts or ideas are essentially contested
concepts.
So for example, concepts like democracy or
liberty or equality or justice do not have
one common universal definition or understanding.
So these concepts are essentially contested
concepts and yet these concepts are inevitable
to understand the politics or democracy in
any societies or any countries.
So for example, in India in contemporary times,
if we try to make sense of freedom of speech,
or expression or what is free speech or what
is hate speech, what is equality, how far
or preferential treatment or what we call
the relation is justified in the name of equality
or empowering the historically disadvantaged
groups in the country.
Ordinary justice, or how procedural justice
is different from substantial justice? Or
similarly with the concepts of democracy.
So in this course I would that we will engage
with some of these concepts and ideas and
through them we will try to understand on,
understand the politics or democracy in any
societies. We will be able to develop our
own opinion and judgments about some of the
political developments and not simply rely
on the comments or analysis by others.
So these concepts is helpful to understand
some of the political developments or discourse
in any given, given society.
Now what is the task of political theory,
and why should study them? So for a very long
time there is this understanding that, political
theory is what?
Normative concepts that is to say, that it
deals with the questions which is very abstract,
in a sense very different from the actual
reality. And the question it deals with is
like what should be or what ought to be rather
than what is, what is the real, what is the
actual.
Now in political science as many of you would
be aware that it talks about pragmatic things.
It talks about the real politics, real political
processes. And it is understood that political
theory in its abstract sense or with excessive
focus on normative concerns, do not really
talk about the actual, real politics.
But contrary to that, as we proceed in this
course, we will realize that how political
theory is not just deals with the normative
questions but also engage with the real actual
politics in any given society and also help
in shaping the direction of politics in any
given society. So in that sense this course
will be very helpful to make sense of the
broader political developments or discourses
in any given society.
The concepts that we are going to deal with
in this course is like liberty and we will
deal with many concepts of liberty, negative,
positive or the republican concepts and what
is free speech, what is hate speech, or we
also try to understand freedom as an autonomy
or what Gandhi calls freedom as Swaraj.
Similarly with the concepts like equality
we will engage with the ideas like equality
and egalitarianism, equality of opportunity
or preferential treatment or what is luck
egalitarianism and its critiques.
We will also discuss the concept of rights
and we engage with various conceptions of
rights, how modern rights are different from
legal rights, or what are the difference between
political, social, cultural, human rights
and rights and duties.
Similarly we will discuss the concept of justice
which is essentially a distributed concept
but we will also engage with the procedural
and substantive conceptions of justice or
justice as fairness and capability approach,
and also libertian, communitarian, and the
feminist conception of justice.
Similarly we will discuss the concept of power
and we engage with the questions of authority,
legitimacy and hegemony and so on. The next
concept is state and sovereignty where we
will, again deal with different conceptions
of state, how modern state is also a nation
state, what is sovereignty, and what is the
liberal, Marxist and feminist conceptions
of state and sovereignty.
The next concept that we will discuss is the
concept of democracy where we will discuss
the procedural and substantive conception
of democracy and what are the various models
of democracy and the challenges that democracy
is facing in contemporary times and also historically.
And how free press is inevitable for the success
of democracy? Similarly with the concept of
citizenship we will discuss the classical,
liberal approach of citizenship including
the T. H. Marshall and also multiculturalism
and cosmopolitan approach to citizenship.
Finally the last concept in this course is
politics and environmental ethics where we
discuss some of the contemporary challenges
which humanity as a whole is facing and how
political theory respond to such a, such challenges.
So we will discuss politics and environmental
ethics, the idea of doom and gloom, democracy
and environmental crisis, climate change and
environmental justice.
So these are some of the concepts or ideas
that we engage with in this course and I request
you all to register for this course and engage
with some of the concepts and ideas that we
are going to deal with.
The text for this course would be Catriona
McKinnon, Issues in Political Theory and also
H John and G Paul, Introduction to Political
Theory and G. Gerald, Political Concepts and
Political Theories and also Rajeev Bhargava
and Ashok Acharya edited Political Theory,
An Introduction.
So these are some of the text which you can
look at or you can refer to while trying to
understand or engage with some of the concepts
and ideas that is there in this course.
The assessment will be for, divided into 2
parts. One is for weekly assignments and the
second is written exam. And for weekly assignments
30 percent marks will be reserved for these
weekly assignments and then 70 percent will
be for the written, written exam.
And throughout this course you can ask your
queries at any time on any issues that is
related to this course and you will get the
response from me or my T A within 24 hours.
So I hope you will enjoy this course and I
once again invite you to register for this
course, thank you.
