28113 - History of Political Doctrines (1) (LM) (G.B)

Learning outcomes

The course provides methodological, critical, and historiographical skills such that students are able to interpret some of the issues debated in the history of political thought in modern and contemporary times, including through direct reading of texts.

Course contents

State and power. Historical frameworks and theoretical-political perspectives on institutional practices and legal forms of organizing society in the contemporary age.

In the transition between the 20th and 21st centuries, we have insistently written about the crisis of the state, the juridification of social and political relations, and judicial populism. In 2020, on the other hand, at the time of the Covid health emergency, the state-not transnational institutions-appeared as the central institutional subject to cope with the condition of need, even resorting to limitations on individual freedom such as had not yet been observed in post-1945 democratic societies.
It therefore seems appropriate to return to the question of the state, the historical-political path leading from the eighteenth-nineteenth-century nation-state to the "liquid" state, as statehood has come to be defined in the age of globalization. The question of order (of society) and norm (in the regulation of relations between individuals and between the individual and the state) is still a topic of historical relevance and theoretical-political debate. Therefore, the course aims to offer some coordinates of the journey that leads the state and law to become essential domains in the organized life of political communities, with particular reference to different political-institutional visions and cultures, as well as with historiographical interpretations. The general historical frameworks will then be commented on with the points of view of the protagonists of the different eras themselves and with the readings gradually provided by scholars, with the aim of restoring the historical and legal complexity of this permanent tension in state action in contemporary times between rule and exception, between the ordinary and the extraordinary, between normative custom and special legislation, between conditions of normality and states of crisis.

Readings/Bibliography

 

Selected bibliography

[The lecturer is available, in case of specific and special interests, to arrange ad hoc thematic bibliographies]

Lo Stato moderno in Europa. Istituzioni e diritto, a cura di Maurizio Fioravanti, Laterza;

Stato, a cura di Pier Paolo Portinaro, Laterza;

Charles Maier, Leviatano 2.0. La costruzione dello stato moderno, Einaudi;

Pierpaolo Portinaro, Stato, Il Mulino;

Nicola Matteucci, Lo stato moderno. Lessico e percorsi, Il Mulino;

Anthony Pagden, Oltre gli stati. Poteri, popoli e ordine globale, Il Mulino;

Norberto Bobbio, Stato, governo, società, Einaudi;

Gianfranco Poggi, Lo stato. Natura, sviluppo, prospettive, Il Mulino;

Maurizio Fioravanti, Costituzionalismo. Percorsi della storia e tendenze attuali, Laterza;

Luigi Lacché, La Costituzione nel Novecento. Percorsi storici e vicissitudini dello Stato di diritto, Giappichelli;

Luigi Marco Bassani e Alberto Mingardi, Dalla Polis allo Stato. Introduzione alla storia del pensiero politico, Giappichelli.

 

For those who need a textbook basis on the history of political thought, we recommend the following:

Carlo Galli, Manuale di storia del pensiero politico, Il Mulino.

 

Attending students will take the exam in the form of an oral interview based on what they learned in the lessons and three texts of their choice from the list.

Non-attenders will supplement the exam program by reading the volume:

Wolfgang Reinhard, Storia dello stato moderno, Il Mulino.

Teaching methods

The course will take place mainly through frontal academic lessons alternated with seminar and text analysis moments. Documents and materials analysed in class will always be made available to students and may possibly constitute examination material for those attending.

As part of the course, a number of seminar moments may be organized with external researchers, aimed at deepening specific aspects of the topic and presenting original individual research paths.

Assessment methods

For the purpose of ascertaining knowledge, there is the possibility of on-going reports by students on the topics covered in the course. These reports may take written form in preparation for the final examination. However, an attempt will be made to encourage the active participation of students in the lectures.

During the lectures and reports given as part of the course special attention will be paid to testing the students' ability to critique texts and sources, as well as to argue their positions and interpretive proposals with clarity and conceptual effectiveness.

The final exam is conducted in oral form, and is aimed at assaying the acquisition of the content covered in the course and the student's critical ability to measure himself or herself against the texts in the bibliography.

In particular, the interview aims to test the ability to frame facts and problems in their spatio-temporal context, to articulate the exposition in clear and effective terms, to deepen the mastery of more specific knowledge, to test the ability to make connections of relationship and causality, as well as to make appropriate conceptualizations.

For those attending, there will be an opportunity to submit a possible written paper on specific aspects of the course to partially replace the examination bibliography.

Teaching tools

 

Images and documentary materials (author's texts, archival sources) may be used during the course to enrich the exposition of course topics and facilitate understanding.

 

Office hours

See the website of Luca Baldissara