166-020 Modern Political Thought

Note

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Usually 25 points of a First Year Politics subject. Students with only 12.5 points in Politics may apply to the Second/Third Year coordinator.

Semester

Subject Description

This subject is an accessible survey of the development and principal arguments of the major schools of political thought in the past 200 years, especially those that have motivated and expressed the needs of large groups of people. The schools of political thought surveyed in the lectures include: liberalism, Marxism, feminism, anarchism, syndicalism, communism, nationalism, fascism, socialism, social democracy, conservatism, the New Right, environmentalism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Tutorial discussion centres on primary source documents for each school of thought, which include classical political essays such as Marx's Communist Manifesto and Mill's On Liberty. On completion of the subject students should be familiar with the development and principal arguments of the major schools of political thought in the past 200 years.