DEMOCRACY & DIVERSITY
Curricula

The Institute was designed by the East and Central Europe Program as a place where East European and American students can study together, creating an international forum for free, but rigorous discussion on modern societies and cultures. We have in past years explored the issues of democratic ideals and practices, economic and constitutional transformation, and the social construction of gender. Our faculty customarily includes long-standing associates of ECEP from The Graduate Faculty, as well as from the region. A series of special guest lectures is also featured, including such speakers as Shlomo Avineri, Adam Michnik, and Czeslaw Milosz. It is also an opportunity to get to know the historic city of Cracow and its surroundings.

--Elzbieta Matynia
Director, ECEP

1992

The social constitution of Democracy: A Comparative Perspective
Professor Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Sociology Department, The Graduate Faculty

This course will examine the ways in which forms of social life both support and undermine democracy. Our comparative framework will focus on the associational basis of democratic opposition to totalitarian politics, and the enervating effects of mass society on democratic politics. Readings will include Tocqueville, Dewey, Lippman, Arendt, Bellah, Shils and Michnik.

The "Multicultural Controversy": Diversity and Hegemony in the Making of American Democracy
Professor Donald M. Scott, Eugene Lang College, Dean, and Committee on Historical Studies, The Graduate Faculty

Racial, ethnic and religious diversity has characterized American society from the beginning, along with debate about character and content of a common American culture; a debate which goes to the heart of the idea of the United States as a democratic society. This course will examine how the question expresses itself in religion, the arts, and the public culture. The focus of the course will be historical, but it will be informed by a variety of theoretical approaches.

Ethnicity, Race, and Immigration: The Construction of Group and national Identity in the United States
Professor George Shulman, Political Science Department, The Graduate Faculty

This course examines the formation of cultural identities in the United States by exploring how definition of ethnicity and race are related to definitions of national identity. The readings will include Jane Adams, Randolph Bourne, and James Baldwin, among others.

Theories of Gender in Culture
Professor Ann Snitow, Committee on Liberal Studies, The Graduate Faculty and Eugene Lang College

For a variety of reasons, among them the recent development of a women's liberation movement in the U.S. and Western Europe, gender is becoming less of a social given and more of a social question. For the first time in this century, theorists are giving serious consideration to male and female as key variables in experience. The result has been an extraordinary proliferation of feminisms and reactions, many of which we will introduce and explore.

1993

Democracy: Between Ideal and Reality
Professor Jeffrey Goldfarb, Department of Sociology, The Graduate Faculty
Professor Marcin Krol, Institute of Applied Social Sciences, Warsaw University

This course will examine the ways in which forms of social life both support and undermine democracy. The comparative framework of the course will focus on the associational basis of democratic opposition to anti-democratic politics. Special emphasis will be given to the enervating effects of mass society, identity politics, and the power of political discourse on democratic processes.

Religions, Diversity, and Democracy: Public Religions in Comparative Perspective
Professor Jose Casanova, Department of Sociology, The Graduate Faculty

Which forms of public religion are compatible with and likely to enhance modern democratic structures? The course will seek an answer to this question in three steps: through a reformulation of theories of modern secularization; through a comparative analysis of the role of the Catholic Church in recent processes of democratization in Spain, Poland and Brazil; through a discussion of ongoing religious conflicts and contested issues in Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine, former Yugoslavia) and the United States.

Theories of Gender in Culture II
Professor Ann Snitow, Committee on Liberal Studies, The Graduate Faculty and Eugene Lang College

For a variety of reasons, among them the recent development of a woman's movement in the U.S. and Western Europe, gender is becoming less of a social given and more of a social question. For the first time in this century, theorists are giving serious consideration to male and female as key variables in experience. The result has been an extraordinary proliferation of feminisms and reactions, many of which we will introduce and explore.

Totalitarian Regimes: Comparative Studies of Stalinism and Nazism
Professor Jan T. Gross, Department of Politics, New York University

On the basis of Alan Bullock's recently published Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, we will investigate characteristic features of Soviet and Nazi regimes. This reading will be complemented by classical texts of Hannah Arendt, Carl Freidrich, Juan Linz, among others. We will discuss totalitarian ideologies, characteristics of one-party rule, and personal charisma of totalitarian leaders.

1994

Beginning Politics: Starting Regimes in Political Theory and Contemporary Politics
Professor David Plotke, Political Science Department, The Graduate Faculty

This course considers different understandings of how political regimes begin. We will start with Hannah Arendt's account of revolution, which considers the origins of both liberal and illiberal regimes. We will then look at two long traditions of understanding how political regimes are built -- the liberal tradition, focused on consent, and the radical-popular tradition, focused on creating a popular will in favor of a new polity. The later sessions of this course will consider twentieth century political experiences of regime formation in the light of these theoretical traditions: the construction of totalitarian regimes; recent and ongoing transitions to democracy; and forms of regime change and renewal within democratic politics.

Democracy after Communism
Professor David Plotke - Political Science Department, The Graduate Faculty

This course is about the effects of the end of Communism and the Cold War on democratic theory in the United States and Western Europe. We examine how Western theories of liberal democracy responded to Communism and the Cold War in the decades after World War II. We then consider what changes in theories of democracy are likely and desirable in the new situation. We focus on: political participation; national and cultural diversity; democratic control of state institutions; and democracy beyond the political system (e.g., in economic life).

Ethnos and Demos: The Dynamics of 19th-20th Century Nationalism
Professor Elzbieta Matynia -Committee on Liberal Studies, The Graduate Faculty
Professor Jerzy Szacki, Graduate School for Social Research, Warsaw

Whether defined as philosophical concept, ideology, attitude, or group's state of mind, nationalism continues to be a major ideological force of the last two centuries, leading to successive reconfigurations of the world's map. This course will explore the polymorphic character of nationalism, and in particular the complexities of its cultural and political types.

Theories of Gender in Culture
Professor Ann Snitow - Committee on Liberal Studies, The Graduate Faculty and Eugene Lang College

For a variety of reasons, among them the recent development of a women's movement in the U.S. and Western Europe, gender is becoming less of a social given and more of a social question. For the first time in this century, theorists are giving serious consideration to male and female as key variables in experience. The result has been an extraordinary proliferation of feminisms and reactions, many of which we will introduce and explore.

Families, Women, and Public Policy
Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director, Connecticut Commission on Children

In this workshop we will consider several major policy issues in contemporary North America and Europe, such as those in relations between family and work, childcare, education, and social welfare. And we will look at the practical side of policymaking: turning good ideas into legislation, helping legislative proposals become laws, and devising ways to implement new programs.

1995

Civil Society and the Public Sphere
Professor Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Sociology Department, The Graduate Faculty

In this course the problems of an independent civil society and its relationship with public life will be explored. Such issues as the constitution of the public sphere, the nature of freedom and authority, and the meaning of politics, and their relationship with civic life will be examined. The major texts will include Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition and The Origins of Totalitarianism and Jurgen Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.

Problems in Democratic Politics Today
Professor David Plotke, Political Science Department, The Graduate Faculty

We will examine basic problems in democratic theory and practice. After the end of Communism and the Cold War, problems in long-established democracies and in post-communist countries where democratic institutions are new and overlap sufficiently enough to make possible a common discussion. What forms of representation and participation are desirable? What are the appropriate roles of interest groups, social movements, and civic associations? What sorts of political and cultural agreement can sustain democratic practices (given the reality of national, ethnic, religious, and racial diversity)? We will consider these and other questions as they now appear in North America and Europe.

Institution-Building in Post-Communist Societies
Professors Ulrich Preuss, University of Bremen
Professor Claus Offe, Humboldt University

In this course we will study the prospects for and the constraints on the construction and consolidation of a democratic order in the post-communist societies of East and Central Europe. The focus will be on an analysis of the political order (constitution-making, political regimes, and relevant institutional actors), the marketization of the economy, and the interactions between these main elements of the transition process.

Theories of Gender in Culture
Professor Ann Snitow, Committee for Gender Studies, The Graduate Faculty

For a variety of reasons, among them the recent development of a women's movement in the U.S. and Western Europe, gender is becoming less of a social given and more of a social question. For the first time in this century, theorists are giving serious consideration to male and female as key variables in experience. The result has been an extraordinary proliferation of feminisms and reactions, many of which we will introduce and explore.

  1996

Citizenship & Democratic Politics Today
Professor David Plotke, Department of Political Science, Graduate Faculty

After communism and the cold war, problems in established democracies and in post-communist countries overlap enough to make possible a common discussion. This course will explore common problems in diverse democratic societies today, using the idea and practice of citizenship as a lens. We will consider what it should mean to be a citizen in a democratic polity. How much should citizens participate in politics and with what aims? What forms should their participation take (political parties, interest groups, movements) and how should citizens be represented in political decision-making? In this manner we will consider several problems that now appear in North America and Western Europe, East and Central Europe, and elsewhere, regarding participation, political values, immigration, and competing identities.

The Making of State and Society: Israel and Ukraine
Professor Shlomo Avineri, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Professor Bohdan Krawchenko, Kiev-Mohyla Academy, Kiev, Ukraine

This course will compare state-building processes in Ukraine and Israel and examine the variety of societal forces that shape them. In the case of Israel the course will try, on a comparative basis, to delineate the specific ingredients of nation-building under the conditions of dispersion, lack of territoriality and powerlessness. The current challenges facing Israel in the transition from war to peace will be discussed. In the case of Ukraine the course will focus on the challenges of state-building in the period of independence and examine the problems of administrative reform, policy-making processes, corruption, and bureaucratic culture, while at the same time investigating the impact of societal actors and regional forces on the process.

Problems in Democratic Culture
Professor Jeffrey Goldfarb, Department of Sociology, Graduate Faculty

Political correctness, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and identity politics are controversial topics in the United States today. In this course these contemporary topics will be analyzed as part of the on-going struggle for a democratic culture. The controversies will be considered in historical and theoretical contexts which involve on-going attempts to address the problems and promises of democracy in America. It will be a primary task of the class to consider how these issues relate to the pressing problems of the new democracies of East and Central Europe. Readings will include de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and a selection of Hannah Arendt's essays, as well as texts by Stephan Carter, Andrew Hacker, Toni Morrison, Robert Bellah, Patricia Williams, and Paul Berman.

Theories of Gender in Society
Professor Ann Snitow, Committee on Gender Studies and Feminist Theory, Graduate Faculty

Now in its fifth year, this course keeps changing to include developing debates, from both East and West, about the ways in which gender structures social and political life. This summer, the course will introduce a wide range of discourses about male and female as key variables in both private and public experience. We will discuss a variety of feminist movements - both their theories and practices - including a critical assessment of the current globalization of feminist ideas and action.

South Africa's Transition in Comparative Perspective
Professor Stephen Gelb, University of Durban, South Africa

A growing body of literature seeks to understand democratic transition and consolidation by analyzing the experiences of Latin America and Eastern Europe. The interaction of economic and political reform with democratization is also an important recent area of research. This course will locate South Africa's abolition of apartheid in a comparative perspective, drawing on these international experiences. It will focus upon the social and political processes which led to a negotiated transition to democracy. We will also examine the efforts to construct a post-apartheid society, economy, and state.

Workshop: Public Policy and the Environment: Assessing Need, Creating Policy, Mobilizing the Public
Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director, Connecticut Commission on Children

While continuing to address several major policy issues in contemporary North America and Europe, such as child care, education, and social welfare, we will be giving special emphasis this year to environmental issues. We will look at the practical side of policy-making: turning good ideas into legislation, helping legislative proposals become laws, and devising ways to implement new programs. In the course of the workshop, we will examine ongoing efforts to fight environmental degradation in the city of Cracow and its surroundings.

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