Module description
How is democracy understood and lived around the world? Do the geographically and historically specific imaginations and set ups of democratic governance exhaust the ways democracy can emerge and develop? How can we explain widespread democratic malaise in both established and emerging democracies today? This political anthropology module begins with the double assertion that, while democracy has become the hegemonic paradigm of political organization globally, democracy is not a system of governance per se.
Rather, democracy is first and foremost an idea, namely that that people should actively participate in organizing the collectivity. Therefore, the module will delve into experiences of the democratic around the world with a view to perform the following critical scholarly gestures:
1) Pluralize the range of phenomena and attitudes that are understood and actualized as democratic;
2) Trace the cultural implications of international democracy promotion predominantly but not exclusively in postcolonial societies;
3) Provide geographically embedded critiques of institutionalized liberalism, the historically hyphenated partner of Western democracy, both its commitment to the naturalized values of individualism, rule of law, secularism, and capitalism and its elision with the prerogatives of the global market.
The module will explore some case-studies from the Euro-American context, and will place specific emphasis on experiences from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
The module does not require any prior knowledge in political anthropology. The module requires a degree of independent research in the geopolitical and historical situations that feature in weekly sessions.
Assessment details
One oral presentation (10 minutes) (15%) & one 2500 word essay (85%)
Educational aims & objectives
- consolidate student understanding of democratic theories and the concept of democracy
- strengthen student ability to critically assess and produce scholarly insight over the productive interaction between theory and
- case studies
- familiarize students to the discipline of political anthropology
- familiarize students with a range of democratic experiences around the world
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- critically review Euro-American democratic theory in relation to its global applicability
- display a solid understanding of democratic discourse and practice in social science.
- Engage confidently in the systematic comparison of different political contexts
Employability & transferable skills
This module places considerable emphasis on student employability by cultivating transferable skills that are highly sought-after in the civil and diplomatic sectors, journalism, development, and other fields of political analysis. To this end, students will learn:
- how to critically approach and relativize dominant political concepts
- how to synthesize information across geopolitical and historical contexts
- how to produce a short analytical report in the form of an essay
- how to take initiative in the conceptualization and completion of a research process for the completion of the summative assessment
Teaching pattern
One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar, weekly
Indicative teaching schedule
Week 1: Democracy, An Anthropological Approach
Week 2: Pedagogies and Agents of Democracy
Week 3: Democratic Affects
Week 4: Democratic Rituals
Week 5: Democracy and the Nation
Week 6: Democracy and the People
Week 7: Democratic Malaise Part 1: Democracy in the Post Colony
Week 8: Democratic Malaise Part 2: Democracy and the Market
Week 9: Direct Democracies
Week 10: Essay Workshop