Fall/Winter Timetable
POL460H1S L0101
Graduate Course Code: POL2006H1S L0101
Studies in Modern Political Theory
Public Reason, Deliberation, and the Democratic Public Sphere
Themes
How should citizens and politicians be talking to each other in the public sphere about public issues? Why is this question important indeed more important than how citizens and politicians vote? These are the core questions we will investigate in this course. We will begin with the philosophical answers to these questions and end with some practical challenges faced by all democratic publics. The work of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas will serve as our philosophical starting point. From these two theorists we will reconstruct an ideal of public justification and democratic legitimacy that gives primacy to reason and reason giving. We will then move through some concrete cases, in particular we will investigate the appropriate place of religion, passion, rhetoric and the media in public debate as well as post colonial challenges to the idea of reason embedded in theories of public justification and deliberation.
Texts
TBA
Format and Requirements
One two-hour seminar per week. Course requirements: a shorter and longer essay and a take home test.
Prerequisites
POL320Y1 or POL320Y5 or POL323H1 or POL323Y1 or POL330H1 or POL330Y1 or (POLC73H3, POLC74H3)
Exclusions
POL460Y1
January 29, 2020
Congratulations to all our amazing undergraduate students who picked up one the department’s twenty-three awards and scholarships at our annual undergraduate awards ceremony. In attendance were Dean of Arts &...
March 26, 2015
The Department of Political Science offers a hearty congratulations to Mr. David Cosolo for being awarded a position in the prestigious Jaimie Anderson Parliamentary Internship. David is a fourth year...
March 16, 2015
The University of Toronto United Nations Society and U of T Pre-Law Society are delighted to prevent their conference Global Awakening: Indigenous Rights in Canada and the World in partnership...
March 12, 2015
A huge congratulations to fourth-year Political Science and History student Jozef A. Kosc, who has been awarded the prestigious John H. Moss Scholarship to read for an MPhil in International Relations at...
March 5, 2015
The Association of Political Science Students (APSS) had an excellent turnout for it's February event - a panel discussion on "Aboriginal Politics Today" that featured Professor Peter Russell and Nelson...
February 24, 2015
The Department of Political Science invites you to attend a Backpack to Briefcase (b2B) Career Panel Discussion for students and recent graduates. DATE Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015 TIME ...
February 13, 2015
Are you in the third or fourth year of your undergraduate degree in political science? Are you wondering what kind of job and life opportunities are awaiting you after you graduate?...
February 11, 2015
Proud of being a political science student at the University of Toronto? If so, the Association of Political Science Students (APSS) has some exciting news for you. As of today,...
February 6, 2015
Please be sure to follow The Department of Political Science on YouTube for videos of all the latest happenings. We've started uploading videos of our inaugural undergraduate re-orientation. Have a look to...
February 6, 2015
The Mitacs Globalink Research Award provides funding to support senior undergraduate, graduate, and PhD student research projects abroad. Mitacs is now pleased to offer student mobility opportunities between Canada and France:...