Professor Thomas Poole

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Political Theory and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

This course examines the relationship between law and political theory. It does so through the study of classic texts of political thought: typically Hobbes, Leviathan, Rousseau, Social Contract; Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France; Schmitt, Constitutional Theory; Arendt, On Revolution; Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty. In this way, the course deals with major topics of theoretical and juridical interest, such as the rule of law, law and government, theories of authority and legitimacy, revolution and the state, nationalism and cosmopolitanism.

This course will have 20 hours of teaching content in Lent Term and an additional two hours of teaching in the Summer Term. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6 of Lent Term.

All students are expected to produce one 2,000 word formative essay during the course.

The reading for the course consists of classic texts in political thought. Many are available online and the course is delivered through Moodle.

Essay (100%, 8000 words) in the ST.