This is the introductory page for course PL525, Analysing Political Culture, for Spring 2009. It is a course that focuses on the ideas of associational life, civil society and social capital.

This page gives details of assessment, aims and objectives and background reading. Carefully read all the information of this page as it contains essential information.

For the rest of the course details on this site follow the quick links below:

PL525 Week by Week Reading

PL525 suggested in class assignment/essay questions

(1) Course Schedule

PL525 Lecture Thursday 11:00 - 12:00 KLT3

PL525   Seminar  One, Thursday 12:00 - 13:00  W1-SR6 (The New Woolf College)

  PL525   Seminar  Two, Thursday 13:00 - 14:00   W1 - SR6

PL525   Seminar  Three, Thursday 15:00 - 16:00  Cornwallis Seminar 11

My office hour is Tuesday at 2:00 in N.04c George Allen Wing, Cornwallis.

 (2) General Introduction/Description

This course analyses political culture: it is concerned primarily with the idea of civil society, but also with associational life in general, impersonal trust, whether democractic processes should be elitist or radically participatory and other issues. It is a one unit, period two module with a value of 15 credits. It is a level I or H course.

(4) Aims and Objectives. The aims of the module are:

(5) Course Outcomes

By the end of this course, if successfully completed, you will have grasped some of the central issues in contemporary political philosophy:

(a) You will have acquired an understanding of the distinctive features of a liberal political theory, a theory of justice and the value of community;

(b) identified the distinctively philosophical element in reflection about politics and critically engaged with them;

(c) reflected critically on the aims and ambitions of a philosophical theory of politics, such as the nature of legitimacy, defending generic theories such as liberalism, communitarianism and republicanism, the idea of a theory of and particular conceptions of justice and explored the rationales for each of these views.

You will also have acquired generic learning skills which are as follows:

Learning Skills

During this course you will have had instruction and practice in:

(a) Cognitive skills:

Students who successfully complete the module will have: (i) developed their skill in philosophical analysis; (ii) engaged in philosophical argument, both oral and written; (iii) shown ability to work alone and to take responsibility for their own learning.

(b) Writing skills:

Students who successfully complete the module will have: (i) developed their skills in the written presentation of their arguments in a logically structured and clear manner.

By the end of the course students will have been given the opportunity to develop, but will not receive direct tuition in, skills which will lead to:

(c) Literacy:

Students who successfully complete the module will have: developed writing that ought to display at least a competent level of literacy with regard to grammar, punctuation, spelling, and composition;

(d) Use of Information Technology:

Students who successfully complete the module will have: word-processed their assignments; used e-mail for access for course announcements and for group discussions (if applicable).

(e) Groupwork (Where Applicable):

Students who successfully complete the module will have: worked with others in meeting the content course outcomes, both during class time, and outside of class through e-mail discussions.

N.B.Guidance for these latter three skills will not be provided in class; rather in cases where such skills are lacking you will be directed to the relevant places within the University (e.g., the library and in the study-skills centre).

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The assessment for this course consists of a 10 per cent mark for seminar contribution (not attendance, although clearly if you do not attend you cannot contribute) a 45 per cent mark for an in-class assignment and a 45 per cent mark for an essay of 2 500 words. (Follow this link for the list of questions for both the in-class assignment and the essay.) I count participation on the bulletin board, e-mail correspondence with me about the course and discussions in office hour of course topics towards your oral contribution mark.

The in-class assignment will be held in the seminar slots in week six, that is on Thursday February 26th, in your usual seminar room. Students are expected to prepare in advance for the in-class assignment. The assignment will consist of a written answer to one of the questions here i.e. the same list of questions as for the essays. You may not do both your essay and your written assignment on the same topic. The assignment lasts for 50 minutes.

Your Writing Week, during which you will prepare your essay, is in twelfth week, April 6th - 9th (there is no teaching on the Friday which is Good Friday and a public holiday). Your second assignment is the essay, which must be handed in by 12 noon on Thursday, April 9th Please read the section on handing in essays, below.

Please tell me in advance if you are entitled to extra time in examinations/in class assignments. Given that we only have a room available for an hour, special arrangements will have to be made in week twelve if you need extra time.

The philosophy section has standard policies about assessment that are as follows:

(1) Anonymising essays in Part Two only:

Anonymity. Essays and in-class assignments must be handed in anonymously. For in-class assignments, write your examination number (not your name and not your student number) on the front of the booklet in which you write your answer. For essays, write your examination number on the cover sheet. Your work will be marked anonymously and numbers matched up with names only after the work has been marked. (At this point appropriate adjustment is made in the case of students who have notified us or the DSU of a disability.)

(2) Receipt of essays:

Submission of essays: Your assignment should be word-processed on single sides of A4, double- spaced, with at least 12 font, with full references, if any, (including properly cited Web sources). A word count should appear on the essay. Please staple your essays together. You must submit TWO PAPER copies of your end-of-term essay. If a second copy is not handed in, you will get back only the cover sheet with marks and comments (if any), as one copy must be kept for the department's records so that they can be consulted by the external examiner at any time. The two copies of the essay must be submitted to the SECL essay box in the Cornwallis building, CNW113.

You must also submit a THIRD COPY of the essay by email to this e-mail address: seclessays@kent.ac.uk

Please send your essay only from your Kent e-mail address and use the module code as your 'subject' heading for your e-mail. You will receive an acknowledgement, by e-mail, that the electronic copy of your essay has been received. You are strongly advised to print out this e-mail acknowledgement and to keep it in a safe place. With the hard copies of the essay you must submit a cover sheet, which can be downloaded from the 'Resources' section of the Philosophy web pages. You must sign the cover sheet to confirm that you have followed the University regulations concerning plagiarism, and that you have submitted an electronic version of the essay.

(3) Late receipt of essays: Essays that are submitted late will be given a mark of 0, unless you have explicitly been given permission BEFORE THE DEADLINE to submit the essay late and have a good reason (such as illness) for doing so. NO EXTENSION CAN BE GIVEN FOR SUBMISSION AFTER THE END OF TERM, AND ANY ESSAY SUBMITTED AFTER THAT WILL BE GIVEN A MARK OF 0. Applications for an extension must be made in advance an in writing to the SECL Senior Tutors.

(4) Failure to attend an in-class assignment:

The deadline for the in-class assignment is the appointed day and time of the in-class assignment itself. It is the policy of the Philosophy Board of Studies that anyone who misses the in-class assignment without prior permission from the module convenor will normally receive a mark of 0. Reasons for which permission may be granted to miss the assignment must be very serious reasons e.g. serious accident, illness, or bereavement. PERMISSION TO MISS AN IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENT WILL BE GRANTED ONLY IF THE STUDENT SIMULTANEOUSLY AGREES AN ALTERNATIVE TIME TO SIT THE ASSIGNMENT WITH THE MODULE CONVENOR.

(5) Marking criteria:

Below are the marking criteria that have been approved by the School of European Culture and Languages.

0-39 (Fail) No evidence of serious engagement with the topic. The student

shows little engagement with material from the primary text or from the class lectures and discussions.

40-49 (Third) Basic knowledge of the material, though with some serious

Deficiencies of understanding. The student shows some evidence of having worked through the reading and of having attended lectures but fails to grasp important issues.

50-59 (2.ii) Good knowledge and understanding of the issues (though there

may be some errors or confusions on particular points). The student shows clear evidence of having worked through the text in the light of class lectures and discussions but has not grasped some of the essential points or is not presenting the material in an independent fashion.

60-69 (2.i) Good knowledge and understanding of the issues. Substantial

evidence of independent thought and judgement, with arguments that are clearly presented and well structured. The student shows ample evidence of having worked through the text in the light of class lectures and discussions and shows a solid grasp of the material.

70+ (First) A full knowledge and understanding of the issues, and a

sustained original argument, clearly presented and well structured. The student shows not only ample evidence of having worked through the text in the light of class lectures and discussions but also shows the ability to assimilate the material with other sections or topics, showing clear signs of independent thinking.

(6) Assessment of Seminar Performance:

Assessment of seminar performance. The mark for seminar performance in this module will reflect both seminar attendance and the quality of contributions to seminars. This mark will now be determined in the following way. In order to obtain a mark for seminar performance students must attend a minimum of 50% of seminars in the course. Students who attend less than 50% of seminars will be given a seminar mark of 0. For students who do attend at least 50% of seminars, the mark for seminar performance will take account of: evidence of knowledge and understanding of the material; exercise of critical judgement; ability to convey ideas clearly; independence and originality of ideas; responding to the contributions of other members of the seminar group and helping to promote discussion; evidence of serious commitment to the work of the course and the requirements of seminar preparation.

If you are unsure of what is required of you or are nervous or hesitant about your capacity to contribute to seminars, please ask for advice from your course teacher.

(7) Viva voce examinations:

As in other Philosophy modules, the course convenor has the right to call any student in for a viva voce examination on the coursework essay that he or she has handed in. The aim of the viva is to enable the assessors (the course convenor and one other moderater) to determine to what extent the student has assimilated and understood the material presented in a piece of work. A mark will be awarded for the piece of work in the light of the evidence provided by the viva of how far the student has understood and assimilated the material.

(8) Plagiarism:

(From Induction Booklet for Philosophy Students)

One reason why you need to be scrupulous about acknowledging your sources is that if you copy a passage from another writer and include it in your essay without acknowledging it, you are likely to deceive the reader into thinking that you wrote it yourself. This is called ‘plagiarising’. The Humanities Faculty’s formal definition of plagiarism is as follows:

Plagiarism is the act of presenting the ideas or discoveries of another as one’s own. To copy sentences, phrases or even striking expressions without acknowledgement in a manner, which may deceive the reader as to the source, is plagiarism; to paraphrase in a manner, which may deceive the reader, is likewise plagiarism. Where such copying or close paraphrase has occurred the mere mention of the source in a bibliography will not be deemed sufficient acknowledgement; in each such instance it must be referred specifically to its source. Verbatim quotations must be directly acknowledged either in inverted commas or by indenting.

The University takes a serious view of plagiarism and imposes severe penalties when it occurs in coursework, dissertations, projects or examinations. NOTE: You risk jeopardising your chances of receiving a degree. If you feel a need for further guidance on this, you should consult your tutor or seminar leader.

See the Induction Booklet for general advice on references and bibliographies.

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 (7) Advice on Reading

• ‘Classic Liberalism and Civil Society: Definitions, History and Relations’, Tom G. Palmer.
• ‘Civil Society and the Marxist Tradition’, Joseph Femia.
• ‘Another Theory of Democracy’, excerpt from Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
• ‘Elite-Mass Linkages’, Robert D. Putnam.
• ‘The Possibility of Civil Society: Tradition, Character and Challenges’, Victor Perez-Diaz.
• ‘The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism’, Michael Walzer.
• ‘The Nature of Social Ties and the Future of Postcommunist Society: Poland after Solidarity’, Wlodzimierz Wesolowski.
• ‘Post-Marxism, No Friend of Civil Society’, Hudson Meadwell.
• ‘Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory’, Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman.
• ‘The Civil Society Argument’, Michael Walzer.
• ‘From Controlled Inclusion to Co-erced Marginalization: The Struggle for Civil Society in Latin America’, Phillip Oxhorn.
• ‘Civil Society and Government: A Liberal-Egalitarian Perspective’, Will Kymlicka.
• ‘Trustworthiness’, Russell Hardin.
• ‘Trust as Noncognitive Security about Motives’, Lawrence C. Becker.
• ‘Invoking Civil Society’, Charles Taylor.
• ‘Liberal Republicanism and the Role of Civil Society’, Alan Thomas.
• Krishnan Kumar, ‘Civil Society: An Inquiry Into the Usefulness of a Historical Term’.

Selective Glossary

The students in 2006 thought a glossary of commonly used terms would be helpful: here it is. E-mail me any suggestions for additions.

Associational Life: sometimes used synonymously with civil society. Life outside the intimate sphere of the family, acting with others not simply in political associations (political parties, special interest groups) but also in associations in civil life such as charities, societies, commercial organisations, trade unions, social clubs or leagues.

Autonomy: from the Greek words for "self" and "law", the idea of "giving a law to oneself", namely, self-directed and rationally grounded free action. A personal or political ideal of such self-direction.

Citizenship: membership of a political community. There is, however, an important distinction between citizenship as status and citizenship as a normative social role. The former consists in membership, for which you may qualify or not (or be disqualified). The latter assumes that one is a functioning member of a political community and sets out further responsibilities or goals attaching to that role.

Civil Society: those free associations located "between" the intimate sphere of the family and outside the political control of the State.

Cognitivism: derived from a Latin stem used in philosophy to beliefs or belief-like states. Usually contrasted with emotions or attitudes.

Corporatism: arrangements in which the State co-opts special interest groups in civil society in a "buffer zone" between the State and the economy. Can be a positive arrangement (e.g. Workers' representative Boards in German companies); more usually viewed as negative aspect of political patronage or "client" politics.

Democracy: most narrowly, a form of political representation; more broadly, the expression of the values of popular sovereignty.

Egalitarianism: the social policy of achieving equality in some respect between citizens. Examples are equality of respect, or equality in the holdings of resources.

Elite theory of Democracy: a theory of democracy that argues that participatory democracy is dangerous and unnecessary; actually functioning democracies involve restricted political elites competing for votes from a largely passive electorate. Ambiguous between an explanatory view about how democracies do operate or a normative view about how they ought to operate. Theory associated with Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian economist and political scientist, who developed the analogy between political competition in elite theory and the role of competition in the market.

Externalities (Negative): the unintended effect of intentional actions, particularly at the social level, usually negative but can also be positive. Comparable to public goods they are more usually public bads, such as environmental pollution. No-one intends to deplete the ozone layer but this is the unintended social effect of large numbers of individual decisions to do other things, aggregated. It is widely accepted that the state or trans-state institutions may be required to take action to prevent negative externalities.

Intimate Sphere: the sphere of immediate family relations. Term used by Habermas in the Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere to refer to family relations; bears a complicated historical relationship to, for example, the idea of the private. (Some examples: a bourgeois family might inhabit a single domestic home and that is not public - they control who enters it. However, until the nineteenth century separate rooms were not the norm for all family members, so this is not entirely a private place either!)

Legitimacy: the fundamental claim that a set of political arrangements can be justified to those over whom it applies. Usually detached from values and defined in terms of processes so that, for example, the contemporary government of China is legitimate even if it is undemocratic and oppresses its citizens' human rights. A value based account of legitimacy would deny that it is appropriate to classify the Chinese government as legitimate.

Liberalism: a normative political theory that usually focuses on the freedom of the individual, particularly vis-a-vis the State. A liberal political theory usually has two components, namely, a set of basic rights and an egalitarian component.

Marxism: the political theory of Karl Marx that takes the ownership of the means of production and more generally the economic structures of a society as determinative of that society's social relations and ideas. Cultural ideas, in particular, reflect the underlying economic substructure. History is understood as a material process determined by class struggle.

New Social Movements: mass based social movements in civil society such as feminism and environmentalist. Appealed to by such Neo-Marxist theorists of civil society as Cohen and Arato as a replacement for

Noncognitivism: defined negatively as a mental state without the "mind to world" direction of fit of a belief. So plans, desires, emotions or attitudes are described as noncognitive mental states.

Participatory Democracy: a conception of democracy in which active participation by citizens in the on-going democratic process is viewed as the most practical application of the ideal of popular sovereignty.

Popular sovereignty: the idea that the basis of legitimacy is popular consent, without coercion or false information.

Public Sphere: a technical term coined by Jurgen Habermas to refer to the coming together in the eighteenth century of private, bourgeois individuals (normally the male head of a household) into a social function where political matters are discussed outside the scope and control of the State. For Habermas the origin of the eighteenth century coffee house as a place where "current affairs" were discussed is an emblematic institution of the emergent public sphere. From his Marxist perspective, Habermas argued that the emancipatory potential of this institution was lost during the nineteenth century when market forces reduced it to manipulable social opinion. The public sphere is picked out by Habermas as performing a certain kind of function: it differs, therefore, from the kind of sociological classification of associations as parts of civil society.

Private Sphere: a sphere of individual discretion, whether demarcated by moral rights or law; more sociologically a place from which other individuals may rightfully be excluded (for example one's home as opposed to a pub - or "public house").

Public Goods: goods that when used by one person do not compete with usage by others and that do not exclude usage by others. An important sub-class as those collective goods produced by the state. Examples of a non-state produced public good is fresh air; an example of state produced collective goods is street lighting.

Quango: acronym for "quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation". In the UK the government implements many social policies via such institutions that are located in the periphery between the State and civil society. Government does not directly control their day to day decisions but it may control appointments to such institutions and their funding. Britain currently has 529, my favourite being the British Potato Council, nominated as one of Britain's "most useless" quangos. ("Celebrating chips as one of our national treasures".)

Republicanism: a political tradition that interprets popular sovereignty as the basis of legitimate government in such a way that political participation is viewed as important in the lives of citizens.

Social Capital: an economists' term, analogous to physical capital, that refers to the benefit that accrues to an individual from her place in a network of social relationships.

State: memorably defined by Max Weber as the social institution that has a monopoly in a politicial comunity on the legitimate application of force.

Virtue: a psychological disposition to action and motivation towards an ethically good end. The disposition must itself be admirable and virtues are unlike skills in involving characteristic patterns of motivation.

© a.p.thomas 2009

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