More often than not, reference to the past of the political takes one of two forms: political history or political philosophy. In the first, we are invited to explore the history of political action. This is the history of rulers and governments, elections, reforms, diplomacy, revolutions. In the second, we study how people of the past have thought about politics, from Plato’s State to the present day.
The course “Political Inventions of the Modern Age” is neither. We offer a comparative look at how political phenomena have historically emerged that for modern man seem to be a natural part of political life: the state, bureaucracy, taxes, elections, parties, and others. Our task is to show how New Age political institutions were invented by societies and states to solve different problems, to understand what in the history of the political belongs to the natural and what to the accidental.
This course was born out of an interdisciplinary project between teachers of political science and history. Each topic receives bilateral coverage from the perspectives of both disciplines. For example, the phenomenon of the state is analyzed politologically from the perspective of the structural preconditions of its emergence, but then on the material of specific European countries the features of their development in early modern times, which conditioned one or another further historical trajectory, are discussed. This gives students a clear understanding of the mutual influence of structural (political or economic) factors and the significance of individual historical events.
COURSE SYLLABUS
What is New Age and how does it relate to the systematic study of politics
Theories of the state. Reasons for the emergence of modern states
The variability of modern political regimes and its causes.
The state and its state.
Bureaucracy as a New Age phenomenon. Bureaucracy and patronage. 6.
Power and taxes in the New Age. Taxes and Tax Deductions (Tax Farms).
Revolutions. Parliaments and representations.
Parties, electoral systems, party systems
Evolution of party systems and their diversity.
The welfare state