8/7/2019 uploads-files-666 (1)

1/6

POLS 332

POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

FALL 2010

Zeynep Gambetti

Course hours: MWW 478Course material: Photocopied texts, at the Gnel Photocopy Shop at Hisarst

Description: The objective of this course is to go to the roots of the three major pillars of politicalscience: the state, civil society and the individual. These roots are dug deep into socio-economicalstructures although we often act and think as if they were not. The course is divided into threethematic parts. In the first 4 weeks, the origins and structure of the state will come under scrutiny.Rather than looking at the institutional components of the state, we will be more interested in itssociological parts, such as the bureaucracy, the elites that rule or control it, the class structure of which

the state is a part, etc. In the next 3-4 weeks, we will try to see what civil society is, how it relates tothe state and to individuals. We will dissect it into its constituent parts, such as civic associations,NGOs, social movements, debating publics. In the remaining 3-4 weeks, we will take the notion of theindividual and re-root it in society. What exactly is the interaction between the two? Is the liberalnotion of a rational individual possible? If not, what remains of the individual?

Requirements: This is a lecture-type course, but you are expected to have completed the weeklyscheduled readings before attending class. The readings are essential, since the lectures will not coverall of the points made in the texts. The lectures are essential, since the readings are difficult tounderstand on your own. Almost all of your grade will consist of 7 quizzes on the reading material.Failing to read regularly is therefore a risk you probably do not want to take.

EvaluationQuizzes: 70 pointsTerm paper: 30 points

Term Paper: The students will be required to write a term paper (max. 15 pages) that involves anempirical research designed to illustrate one or more issues discussed in the course.

Evaluation scala

Quizzes Term Paper

Solid evidence of reading: 5Some evidence of reading: 4Incomplete reply w/ evidence: 4Impertinent reply w/evidence: 3Pertinent reply w/o evidence: 3Comfortably vague: 1Totally vague: 0

Quality of theory: 10Quality of case: 5Quality of research: 10Quality of style: 5TOTAL: 30

8/7/2019 uploads-files-666 (1)

2/6

ACADEMIC HONESTY

The Department of Political Science and International Relations has the following rules andregulations regarding academic honesty.

1. Copying work from others or giving and receiving answers/information during examseither in written or oral form constitutes cheating.

2. Submitting take-home exams and papers of others as your own, using sentences orparagraphs from another author without the proper acknowledgement of the original author,insufficient acknowledgement of the consulted works in the bibliography, all constitute

plagiarism. For further guidelines, you can consult:http://web.gc.cuny.edu/provost/pdf/AvoidingPlagiarism.pdf

3. Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses and will result in:

a) an automatic F in the assignment or the exam,

b) an oral explanation before the Departmental Ethics Committee,

c) losing the opportunity to request and receive any references from the entirefaculty,

d) losing the opportunity to apply in exchange programs,

e) losing the prospects of becoming a student assistant or a graduate assistant in thedepartment.

The students may further be sent to the University Ethnics committee or be subject todisciplinary action.

2

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/provost/pdf/AvoidingPlagiarism.pdfhttp://web.gc.cuny.edu/provost/pdf/AvoidingPlagiarism.pdf

8/7/2019 uploads-files-666 (1)

3/6

8/7/2019 uploads-files-666 (1)

4/6

REQUIRED READINGS

Part I: The State

Formation and conceptualization of the modern state:

Jrgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Cambridge, Mass.: The MITPress, 1991, p. 14-26.

Michel Foucault, Governmentality in G.Burchell, C.Gordon & P. Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect,Studies in Governmentality, Chicago: Chicago UP, 1991, p. 87-104.

Timothy Mitchell, The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics, AmericanPolitical Science Review, Vol. 85 (1), 1991, p. 77-96.

Class or elites?

Karl Marx, The Labouring Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value from Capital, Vol.I, Part III, Chp. VII, in Robert C. Tucker (ed), The Marx-Engels Reader(1st ed.), New York, W.W.

Norton & Co, 1972, p. 344-361.

Nicos Poulantzas, The Bourgeoisie: Their Contradictions and Their Relations to the State in A.Giddens and D. Held (eds.).Classes, Power, and Conflict: Classical and Contemporary Debates,Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, p. 101-111.

C. Wright Mills, "Is There an American Power Elite?" in F. Lindenfeld (ed), Reader in PoliticalSociology, New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1968, p. 263-276.

Taha Parla, Mercantile Militarism in Turkey, 1960-1998, New Perspectives on Turkey, No. 19,1998, p. 29-52.

Modernization and democracy

Barry Hindness, Citizenship in the Modern West in Bryan S. Turner (ed), Citizenship and SocialTheory, London, Sage, 1993, p. 19-35

erif Mardin, Turkish Islamic Exceptionalism Yesterday and Today: Continuity, Rupture andReconstruction in Operational Codes, Turkish Studies, Vol.6 (2), 2005, p. 145-165.

Judith Butler, Sexual Politics, torture, and secular time, British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 59 (1),2008, p. 1-23.

Signs and languages of politics

erif Mardin, Playing Games with Names in Deniz Kandiyoti and Aye Saktanber, Fragments ofCulture. The Everyday of Modern Turkey, New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Herbert Marcuse, The Closing of the Universe of Discourse, One Dimensional Man, London,Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964, p. 84-120.

4

8/7/2019 uploads-files-666 (1)

5/6

Kerem ktem, The Nations Imprint: Demographic Engineering and the Change of Toponymes inRepublican Turkey, European Journal of Turkish Studies, Thematic Issue N 7 , No. 7:Demographic Engineering - Part I. URL :http://www.ejts.org/document2243.html.

Part II: Civil Society

State or civil society?

Yael Navaro-Yashin, Fantasies for the State, Faces of the State, Princeton & Oxford: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2002, p. 155-187.

Berna Turam, The politics of engagement between Islam and the secular state: ambivalences of civilsociety,British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 55 (2), 2004, p. 259-281.

Yasemin pek, Trkiyede Sivil Toplumu Yeniden Dnmek: Neo-Liberal Dnmler veGnlllk, Toplum ve Bilim, 108, 2007, p. 88-128.

[For foreign students: Yasemin pek, Volunteers or governors? Rethinking civil society in Turkeybeyond the problematic of democratization: the case of TEGV, M.A. thesis, Pols 2006, BoaziiUniversity library]

Spaces of power vs spaces of liberty?

Nancy Fraser, Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually ExistingDemocracy in C. Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the public sphere, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,1992, p. 109-142.

Srirupa Roy, Seeing a State: National Commemorations and the Public Sphere in India and Turkey,Comparative Studies in Society and History, 48 (1), 2006, p. 216-232 (excerpts)

Nilfer Gle, Islam in Public,Public Culture, Vol.14(1), 2002, 173190.

Social movements

Alberto Melucci, Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Social Movements, Social Research, Vol.

52 (4), 1985, p. 789-816.

Sefa imek, New Social Movements in Turkey Since 1980, Turkish Studies, Vol. 5 (2), 2004, p.111-139.

Bobby Said, Sign OTimes: Kaffirs and Infidels Fighting the Ninth Crusade in E. Laclau (ed), TheMaking of Political Identities, London, Verso, 1994, p. 264-286.

5

http://www.ejts.org/document2243.htmlhttp://www.ejts.org/document2243.htmlhttp://www.ejts.org/document2243.htmlhttp://www.ejts.org/document2243.html

8/7/2019 uploads-files-666 (1)

6/6

Part III: The Individual

The Marketed Body

George Ritzer, The Irrationality of Rationality, The McDonaldization of Society, Thousand Oaks,Pine Forge Press, 2000, p. 123-145.

Mike Featherstone, The Body in Consumer Culture in M. Featherstone et. al (eds), The Body. SocialProcesses and Cultural Theory, London, Sage, 1991, p. 170-196.

Yael Navarro-Yashin, The markets for identities: secularism, Islamism and commodities in DenizKandiyoti and Aye Saktanber, Fragments of Culture. The Everyday of Modern Turkey, NewBrunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Gender and sex

Michel Foucault, The Repressive Hypothesis from The History of Sexuality Vol. II, in Paul Rabinow(ed.), The Foucault Reader, London, Penguin, 1984, p. 301-329.

Drucilla L. Cornell, Gender, Sex, and Equivalent Rights, in J. Butler and J. Scott (eds.),FeministsTheorize the Political, NY, Routledge, 1992, p. 280-296.

Berthold Schoene, Queer politics, queer theory, and the future of identity: spiralling out of culture inEllen Rooney (ed), The Cambridge companion to feminist literary theory, Cambridge, New York:

Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 283-302.