Ideas and Politics

Course content

This course aims to follow the philosophical and theoretical attempts that suggested or have been interpreted as to provide an ontological status to politics. In these attempts the problematic of the `dialectical` relationship between `structure` and `agency` have been postulated in various ways while the ideational, discursive and reflective capabilities of `the subjects` have been attributed a constitutive role regarding the construction of `reality`. The recent constructivist `turn` especially in the fields of comparative politics and international politics has reflected the operationalisation of these perspectives in the social sciences with a growing body of empirical works. Thouhout the classes a critical engagement with `political ontology` and political studies that take `the ideas` as their basis will be promoted.