166-232 Political Psychology

Note

Available as 166-332 at 3rd-year level.

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Normally 25 points of first-year Politics; students with only 12.5 points in Politics may apply to the 2nd/3rd-year coordinator.

Contact

Subject Description

A study of the passions (emotions) that drive politics and public affairs. And of how private and individual worlds intersect with public, collective worlds. Also, there will be opportunity to reflect on how the self, begun in childhood, finds expression in adult concerns and how it shapes and is shaped by social institutions and history. There will be some consideration of the role of the emotions in the working of groups and in leader-follower relations. Students who complete this subject should: understand that politics is driven by human passions, fantasies and desires; have confronted the idea that there is unconscious politics as well as conscious politics (Sigmund Freud's first ambition was to be a great political leader); see that politics is far bigger than Canberra, Washington or Beijing - it threads its way through all aspects of life, into all organisations and every part of culture, even into families and intimate relationships; agree that politics without the human element is a contradiction in terms (Political Science without biography is a form of taxidermy, said the great American Political Psychologist, Harold Lasswell); have discovered links between theories about how we develop a self in childhood and national and international politics.

Assessment

Essay work or equivalent totalling 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• A.F. Davies, Skills, Outlook and Passion.