Lecture Time: Wednesdays 3:00 - 6:00 pm

Political Theory, Political Thought and Political Philosophy

This course will be concerned with the above sub-fields of political science. We will be discussing some of the major conceptual and methodological issues in our understanding of intellectual and political processes in the Caribbean. Your reading has to be careful and analytical, paying attention to definitions and argumentation. This is not ordinary narrative reading. It is the search for the theoretical premises on which arguments are based and the methodological strategies deployed. We also look at key issues in modern Western political theory and the focus here is on justice. John Rawls’ Theory of Justice, one of the most influential texts of the last half of the twentieth century will be carefully studied. Charles’ Mills’ Racial Contract will also be carefully examined. Mills’ book can be read as a racial revision of contract theory out of which Rawl’s work has evolved. So in this semester we will do rigorous deductive theoretical work and this is preparation for the second semester. In the second semester we will be studying five volumes of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. You need to acquire the CD-ROM of the Report as well as secure a copy of the new constitution of South Africa. We will be looking inductively at issues of justice, truth and memory, reconciliation and reparations, as these bear on Africa and peoples of African descent globally.

Please consult Google for relevant Political Theory websites. The Department of Government’s website – http://mona.uwi.edu/government/ has a link to the Centre for Caribbean Thought which has an archive of articles relevant to this course.

The course will be organized around seminars, in-depth reading and the production of essays. At the end of each section you will be required to write a conceptual paper of five pages on any of the readings or based ideas stimulated by your thinking on the section. Each student will be required to complete a research paper of 15 pages at the end of the semester. The idea paper is worth 5%, the end of term research paper is 35% and the end of term exam 50%.

The Caribbean – A Political Theory approach

Denis Benn – The Caribbean – An Intellectual History 1774-2003. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. 2004

Anthony Bogues “Opening Chant – The Full Has Never Been Told: Heresy, Prophecy, Praxis, and the Black Radical Political Intellectual.” Black Heretics, Black Prophets – Radical Political Intellectuals. New York: Routledge. 2003

Paget Henry –“The African Philosophical Heritage” Chapter 1, Caliban’s Reasons – Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy. New York: Routledge. 2000

Kwame Gyekye “Tradition and Modernity” Chapter 8, Tradition and Modernity Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience. New York: Oxford University Press. 1997

Obika Gray – “Rethinking Power – Political Clientelism and Political Subordination in Jamaica” Chapter 1, Demeaned but Empowered – The Social Power of the Urban Poor in Jamaica. Kingston; UWI Press. 2004

David Scott –“Colonial Governmentality” Chapter 1, Refashioning Futures – Criticism After Postcoloniality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1999.

David Scott “Political Rationalities of the Jamaican Modern” Small Axe 7.2 (2003):1-22

Lloyd Best “Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom” Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom (Essays in Honour of Lloyd Best),edited by Selwyn Ryan. St. Augustine: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies. 2003.

Rupert Lewis “Lloyd Best and Epistemic Challenges” Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom (Essays in Honour of Lloyd Best), edited by Selwyn Ryan. St. Augustine: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies. 2003.

Trevor Campbell and Reginald K. Nugent “Globalisation and the crisis of the Caribbean Intelligentsia.” http://wwwsoc.uwimona.edu.jm:1104/government/globalisation.pdf

David Scott “Fanonian Futures?” Chapter 8, Refashioning Futures – Criticism After Postcoloniality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1999.

Rex Nettleford “Governance in the Contemporary Caribbean: The Way Forward – Towards a Political Culture of Partnership” Chapter 32, – Governance in the Age of Globalisation, edited by Kenneth O. Hall and Denis Benn Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. 2003.

Hilbourne Watson “Globalisation and the Caribbean in the Age of Neo-Mercantilist Imperialism”, Chapter 3, – Governance in the Age of Globalisation edited by Kenneth O. Hall and Denis Benn, Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. 2003.

Alex Dupuy “The New World Order, Globalization and Caribbean Politics” Chapter 20, New Caribbean Thought – A Reader edited by Brian Meeks and Folke Lindahl. Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press. 2001

Eudine Barriteau – “Theorizing the Shift from “Woman” to “Gender” in Caribbean Feminist Discourse” Chapter 2, Confronting Power, Theorizing Gender – Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean

David Scott “Counting Women’s Caring Work: An Interview with Andaiye” Small Axe – 8. 1 (2004):192-204

Immanuel Kant - Introduction to Critique of Pure Reason. New York: Prometheus Books. 1990.

John Rawls A Theory of Justice (revised edition) Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1999 OR

John Rawls – Justice as Fairness - A Restatement. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 2001

Karl Marx – “The German Ideology” in Marx, Engels and Lenin On Historical Materialism New York: International Publishers. 1974: 17- 40.

Hannah Arendt “Truth and Politics” The Portable Hannah Arendt edited by Peter Baehr. New York: Penguin Books

Michel Foucault – “Governmentality” Power – Essential Works of Foucault Voume 3,edited by James D. Faubion. New York: The New Press. 1994.

Charles Mills – The Racial Contract. New York: Cornell University Press 1997

Mervyn C. Alleyne – The Construction and Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and the World. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. 2002.