Government 370 - SEMINAR IN POLITICAL THEORY

Between 1914 and 1945, the world was stricken with economic crisis, ideological conflict, and world war. These crises led many to despair of democracy, and embrace totalitarianism. Yet, in the wake of World War II, a generation of political theorists sought to dispel the assumptions underlying totalitarian ideologies, advance timely defenses of liberal principles, and identify the conditions necessary to sustaining democracy. In this course we will first survey the critique of liberal democracy advanced before 1945, and then closely examine the works of four post-war critics of totalitarianism: Hannah Arendt, Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, and Leo Strauss. (E)

Topic: In Defense of Political Freedom: Liberal Democracy and its Enemies in Twentieth Century Political Thought. Instructor Permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores