Updated October 3, 2003.

Class meetings: 150 Hamilton Hall, Fri., 9:00-11:50 a.m., Aug. 29 - Dec. 12
Office Hours: 227 Hamilton Hall, by appointment (919-962-1241, kurzman@unc.edu)

CLASS LIST

COURSE GOALS:

1) To acquaint students with the field of political sociology.
2) To prepare students for the comprehensive exam in political sociology. Click here for the exam reading list.
3) To push students forward on their own research agendas.

1) Attendance and Participation (10% of final grade)
2) Assigned Reading (not graded directly). Click here to access the readings.
2) Weekly 2-3-page Reading Notes, due 24 hours before each class (30% of final grade). Click here for more info.
3) 1 4-page essay, due Oct. 15 (15% of final grade). Click here for more info.
4) 1 20-page essay, due Dec. 12 (30% of final grade)
5) 1 undergraduate syllabus, due Dec. 12 (15% of final grade)

Week 1: What is political sociology?

Selections from the American Sociological Association's Political Sociology Syllabus Book. Selected syllabi.
Please locate, read, and quote or summarize two definitions of the field, one old and one recent.

Abrams, Philip. 1988. “Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State.” Journal of Historical Sociology 1:58-88.

Alford, Robert R., and Roger Friedland. 1985. Powers of Theory: Capitalism, the State, and Democracy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Introduction, Chaps. 1, 17-19.

Block, Fred. [1977] 1984. "The Ruling Class Does Not Rule." Pp. 32-46 in Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, eds., The PoliticalEconomy. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Meyer, John W., John Boli, George M. Thomas, Francisco O. Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103:144-181.

Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens. 1992. Capitalism, Development, and Democracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Chaps. 1-3.

Skocpol, Theda. 1992. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Preface and Chap. 1.

Manza, Jeff. 2000. “Political Sociological Models of the U.S. New Deal.” Annual Review of Sociology 26:297-322.

Domhoff, G. William. 1996. State Autonomy or Class Dominance? Case Studies on Policy Making in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Chaps. 1, 3.

Huber, Evelyne, and John D. Stephens. 2001. Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Parties and Policies in Global Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chaps. 2, 3.

Hall, Peter, and David Soskice. 2001. "An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism." In Hall and Soskice (eds.), Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chap. 1.

Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish. New York, NY: Vintage. Book 3, Chap. 3.

Foucault, Michel. 1991. “Governmentality.” Pp. 87-104 in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, edited by Graham Burchell,Colin Gordon, & Peter Miller. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chaps. 1, 9-10.

Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Chap. 3.

Sassen, Saskia. 1996. Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press. Chap 1.

Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 186-190, 198-203, 303-309.

Castells, Manuel. 2000. End of Millennium. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers. Pp. 333-337, 377-392.

Gramsci, Antonio. [1928-1935] 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers. Pp. 235, 245-246, 259-263.

Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Chaps. 1, 21, 22, and postscript.