Handbook

This objective of the Course is to give students an understanding of the development and transformation of the modern state – in a comparative perspective – over the last three decades.

The central organizing theme of this Course is the relationship between the emerging political, economic, and environmental crises, and the way these crises pose challenges to the organization and legitimacy of the modern state. In particular, we will examine the relationship between democratic politics and capitalist crisis.

We will discuss the normative challenges posed by these developments for conception of citizenship rights, distributive justice, and political community. The course will specifically explore the impact of forms of market-oriented restructuring on the organization and practice of democratic politics in Australia. The Course will also analyse new patterns of political mobilization, contestation, and resistance, including those around gender and culture. Finally, we will survey a variety of methodological strategies through which scholars have attempted to decipher the forces shaping the state under conditions of political crisis and heightened geoeconomic conflict.

Key themes

• Crisis -theories
• International and domestic dimensions of crisis
• Political crisis: capitalism and democracy
• Populist politics
• Climate and crisis
• Migration, politics, and crisis
• Citizenship and crisis
• Risk society and political crisis
• Politics and policy of crisis response