Prof Jonathan White

This course is available on the MA in Modern History, MSc in Comparative Politics, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Columbia), MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Sciences Po), MSc in Political Economy of Europe, MSc in Political Economy of Europe (LSE and Fudan) , MSc in Political Economy of Europe (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in Political Science (Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics) and MSc in Political Sociology. 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 (it is controlled access). In previous years we have been able to provide places for all students that apply but that may not continue to be the case.

This course investigates various ways in which the State's authority to act has been underpinned in Europe, both ideologically and institutionally, in the modern period. It looks at how the State has been used to give expression to the democratic principle, and the ways this has been undermined or rejected. The module aims to provide students with a deep analytical understanding of the changing role of the State in European society. There will be three parts: A) Theorising the political; B) Democracy in post-War Europe; and C) Contemporary European trends. The course will conclude with an overview on possible trajectories to come, under the heading 'post-ideological, post-democratic and post-statal? - Europe today and beyond'.

20 hours of seminars in Autumn Term. This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

A review session will be held at the start of the Spring Term.

One 1500 word unassessed essay

One 10-12 minute class presentation

• Quentin Skinner (1989) 'The State', in Ball and Hanson (eds.) Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge UP)
• Peter Wagner (2008) Modernity as Experience and Interpretation (Polity)
• James Tully (2002) 'The Unfreedom of the Moderns', Modern Law Review 63
• Margaret Canovan (2005) The People (Polity)
• Michael Freeden (1996) Ideologies and Political Theory (Oxford UP)
• Claus Offe (1996) Modernity and the State: East and West (Polity)
• Chantal Mouffe (2005) On the Political (Verso)
• Nina Eliasoph (1998) Avoiding Politics (Cambridge UP)
• Peter Mair (2006), 'Ruling the Void? The Hollowing of Western Democracy', New Left Review 42
• Jonathan White (2022), 'The De-institutionalisation of Power beyond the State', European Journal of International Relations 28
• Jonathan White (2019), Politics of Last Resort: Governing by Emergency in the European Union (Oxford UP).

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the spring exam period.

The summative assessment will take the form of an e-exam in the Spring Term. E-exams are assessments run under invigilated exam conditions on campus. Students will complete the assessment using software downloaded to their personal laptops.