COMPARATIVE POLITICAL THEORY
M.PHIL OPTIONAL
2015-16
Course Objective: This is an advanced seminar course which hopes to encourage deep
reading and reflection, as well as discussion and writing, on methodological issues in political
theory, especially comparative political theory. The course will dwell upon some diverse
strands such as Enlightenment and its critiques, debates surrounding the contemporary
status of normative political theory and its methodological underpinnings, postcolonial
critiques of Eurocentric thinking, and contemporary reflections on comparative political
theory.
Course Requirements:
PARTICIPATION: 10 Marks
2 STATUS PAPERS [ON METHODOLOGY]: 20 Marks
TERM PAPER + IN-CLASS PRESENTATION [ON CPT]: 45 Marks
REQUIRED READINGS:
Black, Antony. 2011. The Way Forward in Comparative Political Thought. Journal of
International Political Theory, 7(2): 221–228.
Carens, Joseph H. 2004. A Contextual Approach to Political Theory. Ethical Theory and Moral
Practice, 7 (2): 117-132.
Cohen, G. A. 2003. Facts and Principles. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 31 (2): 211-245.
Dallmayr, Fred. 2004. Beyond Monologue: For a Comparative Political Theory. Perspectives
on Politics 2 (2): 249-257.
Dallmayr, Fred. 2009. Montesquieu’s Persian Letters: A Timely Classic. In Rebecca E. Kingston
ed. Montesquieu and His Legacy. Albany: State University of New York Press: 239258.
Diderot, Denis. 1992. Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville. In Political Writings, tr. And
edited by John Hope Mason and Robert Wokler. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press: 35-75.
Euben, Roxanne L. 1997. Comparative Political Theory: An Islamic Fundamentalist Critique of
Rationalism. The Journal of Politics 59 (1): 28-55.
Euben, Roxanne. 2006. Ch. 2. Traveling Theorists and Translating Practices. In Journeys to the
Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge, Princeton:
Princeton University Press: 20-46.
Godrej, Farah. 2009. Response to 'What is Comparative Political Theory?' Review of Politics
71: 567-582.
Godrej, Farah. 2009. Towards a Cosmopolitan Political Thought: The Hermeneutics of
Interpreting the Other. Polity 41 (2): 135-165.
Jenco, Leigh Kathryn. 2007. "What Does Heaven Ever Say?" A Methods-centered Approach
to Cross-cultural Engagement. The American Political Science Review 101 (4): 741755.
Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. Mary J. Gregor, with an
introduction by Christine Korsgaard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaviraj, Sudipta. 2002. Ideas of Freedom in Modern India. In The Idea of Freedom in Asia and
Africa, ed. Robert H. Taylor. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press: 97-142.
Kohn, Margaret and Keally McBride. 2011. Ch. 1. Postcolonial Political Theory and the
Problem of Foundations. In Political Theories of Decoloniaztion: Postcolonialism and
the Problem of Foundations, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 14-34.
March, Andrew. 2009. What Is Comparative Political Theory? Review of Politics 71: 531-65.
Stears, Marc and David Leopold (eds.). 2008. Political Theory: Methods and Approaches.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, Charles. 1985. Ch. 4. Understanding and Ethnocentricity. In Philosophy and the
Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press:
116-133.
Taylor, Charles. 2002. Modern Social Imaginaries. Public Culture 14 (1): 91-124.
von Vacano, Diego. 2015. The Scope of Comparative Political Theory. Annual Review of
Political Science 18: 465-480.
Williams, Melissa S., and Mark E Warren. 2014. A Democratic Case for Comparative Political
Theory. Political Theory Vol. 42 (1): 26-57.
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical
Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat. 2008. Persian Letters, tr. Margaret Mauldon, with
an introduction by Andrew Kahn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.