Political Theory
Exam Schedule
Comprehensive examinations in political theory will be offered annually in June; any retakes of the exam will be scheduled for September. To take the exam, a student must declare an intention to do so well in advance. Please consult the Department’s “Graduate Degree Requirements” for details.
Structure of the Exam
The exam will be two days in length; students will answer one question per day. At the start of each day, students will be given a list of two or more questions, typically by e-mail, from which they will choose one question to answer. Students must return their answers to the exam administrator eight hours after they receive their questions. Delivery by e-mail attachment is acceptable. Answers should be typewritten, double-spaced, in 12 point or larger type; each answer should be between 2000 and 3500 words in length.
Evaluation
At each offering of the exam, at least two faculty in political theory will be responsible for writing questions and evaluating answers. Each essay will be read and evaluated by at least two faculty members. Students will be notified of the results within one month of taking the exam. “Pass” and “not pass” are the only evaluation options. In accordance with departmental policy, students who do not pass the exam the first time shall have the opportunity to retake the exam at a subsequent offering. If a student fails to pass the examination twice, his or her retention in the Ph.D. program will be under review.
Advising
We encourage students to talk to faculty members about strategies for exam preparation. We’re happy to help.
Reading List and Appendix
The exam will cover a set of readings that is listed below. The required texts below represent key interventions in the history of political thought spanning from the Ancients to the twentieth century. While this list is by no means exhaustive, students seeking qualification in political theory should display a thorough knowledge of these texts as well as the interpretive and theoretical debates they have inaugurated. Students are encouraged to consult faculty about helpful secondary sources for these authors. The appendix to this list provides a broader list of authors and texts to help you in your studying.
- Plato, Republic
- Aristotle, Politics
- Cicero, On the Commonwealth and On the Laws
- Augustine, City of God, books IV, 3–4; V, 24; VIII, 1–11; XIV, 28; XV, 1–5; XIX, 4–22, 25–28; XX, 1–2
- Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses on Livy
- Hobbes, Leviathan
- Locke, Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration
- Rousseau, Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) and Of the Social Contract
- The Federalist Papers (1–2, 6–10, 14–28, 33, 36–58, 62–63, 70, 78–85)
- Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Kant, the selections in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings, ed. Kleingeld
- Hegel, The Philosophy of Right
- Tocqueville, Democracy in America
- Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” “The Communist Manifesto,” and Capital, vol. 1 [the selections in The Marx-Engels Reader or McLellan’s Selected Writings are sufficient]
- Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women
- Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
- DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
- Weber, “Science as a Vocation” and “Politics as a Vocation”
- Gandhi, Selected Political Writings (ed. Dalton)
- Schmitt, Concept of the Political and Political Theology
- Arendt, The Human Condition
- Rawls, A Theory of Justice, sec. 1-5, 11-26, 28-44, 46, 48, 50-60, 63, 65, 67, 69, 76-77, 79, 80-82, 87
- Foucault, Discipline and Punish
- Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family
- Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, chapters 1, 5 & 6; “Actions, Speech Acts, Linguistically Mediated Interactions, and the Lifeworld” in On the Pragmatics of Communication; and Between Facts and Norms, chapter 7, Afterword, Appendix 1, Appendix 2
- Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference
The following lists provide a wider view of central texts in political theory. While not required for the exam, we encourage students to consult these texts in their studying and to pursue coursework that will expose you to these works.
Sabine, A History of Political Theory
Wolin, Politics as Vision
Strauss & Cropsey, History of Political Philosophy
Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition
Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought
Okin, Women in Western Political Thought
Benhabib, Critique, Norm & Utopia
Dryzek, Honig, and Phillips, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory
Ryan, On Politics: A History of Political Thought
Sophocles, Antigone
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
Plato, Apology; Crito; Laws
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Cicero, On Duties [ De Officiis]
Aquinas, Selections from Summa Theologica in On Law, Morality, and Politics, trans. Richard J. Regan, ed. William P. Baumgarth and Richard J. Regan (2nd ed.) ST I-II, Questions 90-95 (pp. 10-59) I-II, Q. 96-97 (pp. 59-75); Q. 105 A. 1 (pp. 93-96); II-II Q. 57 A. 2-3 (pp. 100-103); Q. 40 A. 1 (pp. 164-167); Q. 64 A. 6-7 (pp. 167-71); Q. 104 A. 5-6 (pp. 182-185); Q. 42 A. 2 (pp. 188-189)
More, Utopia
Luther and Calvin, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, ed. Höpfl
Vitoria, “On the American Indians”; “On Dietary Laws, or Self-Restraint” (selection: pp. 217-230, Pagden and Lawrance edition)
Montaigne, “Of Cannibals”; “Of Cruelty”
Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, ed. Tuck, Prolegomena [Preliminary Discourse]; Book I: chs. 1, 2 (sections 1-4); Book II: chs. 1, 22, 24, 25; Book III: ch. 1 (sections 1-5 only), and chs. 7, 8, and 25
Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise
Montesquieu, Persian Letters; Spirit of the Laws
Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Parts I and II; “Of the First Principles of Government,” “Of the Origin of Government,” “Of the Original Contract,” “Of Passive Obedience” in Essays
Rousseau, “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts”; “Discourse on Political Economy”; “The State of War”
Herder, “Yet Another Philosophy of History”
Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations, Bk I chs. 1-10; Bks III-IV, Book V, chs.1
Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Nonsense Upon Stilts; “Emancipate your colonies”
Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France; “Speech on Fox’s East India Bill” and “Speech in Opening the Impeachment of Warren Hastings” [selections in Bromwich, ed., On Empire, Liberty, and Reform or J. Welsh and D. Fidler, eds., Empire and Community]
Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Man
Paine, Rights of Man
Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns”
Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit: Preface; Introduction; Lordship and Bondage; Absolute Freedom and Terror
Tocqueville, “Essay on Algeria”; The Old Regime and the Revolution
Mill, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention”; Utilitarianism; Considerations on Representative Government
Emerson, “Self-Reliance”; “Politics”
Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government”
Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; “The Types of Legitimate Domination”
Schmitt, Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy
Dewey, The Public and its Problems
Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
James, The Black Jacobins
Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment
Beauvoir, Second Sex
Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism; On Revolution
Fanon, Black Skin/White Masks; Wretched of the Earth
Strauss, Natural Right and History
Hart, The Concept of Law
Wolin, “Political Theory as a Vocation” and “Fugitive Democracy” in Fugitive Democracy and other Essays
Pitkin, The Concept of Representation
Nozick, Anarchy, State, Utopia
Lukes, Power: A Radical View
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars; Spheres of Justice
Jameson, “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture”
Habermas, “What is Universal Pragmatics?” in Communication and the Evolution of Society; “Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification” in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action; “The Postnational Constellation and the Future of Democracy” in The Postnational Constellation
Foucault, History of Sexuality, vol. 1
Sen, “Equality of what?”
Pateman, The Sexual Contract
Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology
Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear”; The Faces of Injustice
Butler, Gender Trouble
Rawls, Political Liberalism; The Law of Peoples
Mouffe, The Return of the Political
Benhabib, Butler, Cornell, and Fraser, Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange
Mills, The Racial Contract
Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government; On the People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy
Waldron, Law and Disagreement
Sen, Development as Freedom
Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights
Fraser and Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition?
Scott, Conscripts of Modernity
Nagel, “The Problem of Global Justice”
Shelby, We Who Are Dark
Benhabib et al., Another Cosmopolitanism
Anderson, The Imperative of Integration
Young, Responsibility for Justice
Carens, The Ethics of Immigration
Brown and Forst, The Power of Tolerance
Brown, Undoing the Demos
Tully et al., Global Citizenship