Listed in: Political Science, as POSC-370
Ruxandra Paul (Section 01)
[G, SC] The digital age shapes politics around the world, in democracies and dictatorships. New information and communication technologies (ICTs) influence political processes, state-society interactions, markets, and policy-making at all levels. They raise questions for research areas as diverse as sovereignty, elections and campaigns, democratization, protest, repression, war and security policy, terrorism and counterterrorism, trade, currency policy, international cooperation, immigration and diaspora politics, identity, and citizenship.
The course asks four big questions: (1) How does digital technology change democratic politics? (2) How do ICTs challenge authoritarian regimes? (3) Do ICTs boost or undermine international security? (4) Will ICTs render states obsolete by empowering subnational and supranational actors? These structure the seminar in four modules: e-Democracy (social capital, participation, elections, accountability); online revolutions and repression (resistance, mobilization, online censorship and surveillance); cyber security (cyberwar, terrorism, hacking, intelligence, privacy); and beyond the state (international cooperation, markets, transnational activism, digital currencies, subnational actors and transnational networks).
We use current issues and cases (e.g. #Occupy, #BlackLivesMatter, net neutrality, the Arab Spring, online radicalization, the Snowden revelations, Bitcoin, Anonymous ops, Internet censorship in China, etc.) to analyze how cyberspace reshapes politics and political science as a discipline. Students will gain a rigorous and sophisticated understanding of the relationship between technology and politics. The course will help students design, develop, and conduct research in political science.
Requisite: At least one Political Science course (200 level or above). Limited to 18 students. Not open to first-year students. Fall semester. Professor Paul.
Section 01
Tu 02:30 PM - 05:00 PM CLAR 100
| ISBN | Title | Publisher | Author(s) | Comment | Book Store | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies | Oxford University Press (2013) | edited by William Dutton | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations | Penguin Books (2008) | Clay Shirky | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| The net delusion : the dark side of internet freedom | Public Affairs (2011) | Evgeny Morozov | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| No place to hide : Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. surveillance state | Metropolitan Books (2014) | Glenn Greenwald | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Cybersecurity and cyberwar : what everyone needs to know | Oxford University Press (2014) | P.W. Singer and Allan Friedman | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Cyber war : the next threat to national security and what to do about it | Harper Collins Publisher (2010) | Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake | Amherst Books | TBD |
These books are available locally at Amherst Books.