Students understand the classic and modern concepts of political theory. They recognize meta-theoretical premises of political theory by scientific contextualization of key concepts. They can link historic and theoretical perspectives and are because of their dealing with theories on citizenship and human rights, social movements and publics, justice, peace and democracy, migration and globalization, political subjectiveness and power of action, injustice and representation as well as state and government able to work on and explain processes of political significance.

The focus of the lecture is the tension between politics and the political. The political is a key concept in political theory although often ignored in the daily routine of social science conceptualization. “Politics” can be categorized and single fields analyzed, given a certain method. “The political”, however, is the essence of politics and tackles the question why there is politics in the first place. The engagement with the political spreads from questions of the good life, to the common good, to anthropological assessments of interpersonal antagonism.

Close reading of texts, class presentations, class discussions  

written exam

Mouffe, C. On the Political. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. Mouffe, Chantal, and Richard Barth. Agonistik: Die Welt politisch denken. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014. 

successful completion of compulsory module 1 to 4