Political Theory

Faculty

Core:
Joshua Cohen
John Ferejohn
James Fishkin
Josiah Ober
Jack Rakove
Rob Reich
Debra Satz
Peter Stone
John Dupuy

Affiliated:
Eamonn Callan
Barbara Fried
Tom Grey

Courses

Undergraduate:
Polisci 3: Introduction to Political Philosophy
Polisci 130A: History of Political Thought I
Polisci 130B: History of Political Thought II: Eary Modern Political Thought, 1500-1700
Polisci 130C: History of Political Thought III: Freedom, Reason, and Power
Polisci 131: Children's Citizenship: Justice Across Generations
Polisci 132: Ethics of Political Animals
Polisci 133: Ethics and Politics of Public Service
Polisci 136: Philosophical Issues Concerning Race and Racism
Polisci 136S: Justice
Polisci 138: Modern Political Ideologies
Polisci 231S: Contemporary Theories of Justice
Polisci 232: Civil Society and the Nonprofit Sector
Polisci 235: Politics and Religion
Polisci 236: Theories of Civil Society, Philanthropy, and the Nonprofit Sector
Polisci 239: Directed Reading and Research in Political Theory

Graduate:
Polisci 330A: History of Political Thought I
Polisci 330B: History of Political Thought II: Eary Modern Political Thought, 1500-1700
Polisci 330C: History of Political Thought III: Freedom, Reason, and Power
Polisci 332: The Political Theory of Rawls
Polisci 333: Topics in Democratic Theory
Polisci 339: Directed Reading and Research in Political Theory
Polisci 431: Collective Action in Democratic Athens
Polisci 432: Graduate Seminar: Global Justice
Polisci 434: Democracy and the Constitution
Polisci 435: Topics in the Philosophy of Social Science
Polisci 436: Rational Choice
Polisci 437: Legal Studies Workshop

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Workshops and Lectures

Political Theory Workshops

Global Justice Workshop
    Regular Meeting Time: 1:15-3:00 PM
    Regular Meeting Place: Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Encina Hall, 616 Serra St., Room 008 (map)

Wesson Lectures
    Each year the Program in Ethics in Society brings to Stanford a notable scholar to deliver a set of lectures pertaining to issues in democracy. The Wesson Lectures are endowed by the late Robert G. Wesson, a professor at Stanford, who wished to establish a public lecture that would be at once theoretical but also contribute to the actual practice of democracy.

Tanner Lecture
    The purpose of the Tanner Lectures is to advance and reflect upon the scholarly and scientific learning relating to human values. This intention embraces the entire range of values pertinent to the human condition, interest, behavior, and aspiration. The lectures are published in an annual volume.
legal theory workshop

Center for Deliberative Democracy
    The Center for Deliberative Democracy, housed in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, is devoted to research about democracy and public opinion obtained through Deliberative Polling®.

Legal Theory Workshop
    This two-semester course is designed to give students a broad introduction to legal scholarship through exposure to current academic writing in a range of fields and close attention to students' own scholarly writing projects. While all students are welcome to apply, the course is especially designed to meet the needs of students interested in an academic career after law school.

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Program on Ethics in Society
     The Program in Ethics in Society is designed to foster scholarship, teaching, and moral reflection on fundamental issues in personal and public life. The program is grounded in moral and political philosophy, but it extends its concerns across a broad range of traditional disciplinary domains. The program is guided by the idea that ethical thought has application to current social questions and conflicts, and it seeks to encourage moral reflection and practice in areas such as international relations, politics, science, medicine, law, and business.

Center for Ethics
    The Stanford Center on Ethics promotes research, teaching, and public debate on the fundamental moral issues of our times. As home to some of the leading professional schools in business, law, medicine, education, and engineering, Stanford has unique opportunities to contribute to path breaking interdisciplinary work. Drawing on these strengths, the Center aims to advance the foundational theory, moral reasoning skills, and social commitments necessary to address ethical issues.

Center for Global Justice
     Located in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Program on Global Justice aims to foster a global sensibility and an understanding of global politics among political theorists. It aims as well bring humanists and social scientists studying global politics, as well as practitioners in international law, public health, and education, into more direct contact with systematic normative analysis

.The program focuses on four topics:
1. Human rights: Since the end of World War II, it has been widely agreed that all human beings have certain basic entitlements, but how far do these entitlements extend? Do human rights compromise social and economic rights? What are the implications of the idea of human rights for gender equality? How can human rights be advanced in a world with no global state, and in which firms are much more mobile than people? Who has principal responsibility for ensuring the protection of human rights?

2. Global governance: Global politics is not focused on a global state, but in part of a range of global institutions, from the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, to a range of regional security organizations, to such standard-setting bodies as the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Though these organizations are not states, and lack the rule-making and coercive power we associate with states, they have important impact on human lives and well-being, and large issues have emerged in the past decade about their legitimacy. What kinds of processes should they follow? Is membership really voluntary, and does that matter for issues of accountability, representation, and procedural fairness?

3. Access to basic goods: What kinds of goods are essential for an acceptable level of human functioning (health, education, communications, clean water)? How can such basic goods be ensured? Is such provision principally a local responsibility? If so, what kinds of support should be given to local providers? If not, what kinds of outside agents—states, philanthropic organizations, non-governmental organizations—are best positioned to provide them, and how can outside agents provide such basic goods as education and health care, without undermining efforts to build decent local institutions?

4. Philosophical foundations: Modern Western political thought, which emerged in the context of a central political authority ruling over people divided by ethnicity, class, and religious confession, has been preoccupied with how to establish legitimate authority over such a divided population. Philosophical work in the Program focuses on how the new context of global politics changes this terrain of normative argument.

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