Political Creativity. (3-0) 3 Credit Hours

Catalog description

This course examines significant cases of institutional change and development. The course begins with a focus on theoretical debates about political innovation and institutional explanations of politics. We will review the debate about how institutions create political order and constrain individual action as well as leading critiques of order and constraint. We will consider how individual creative action is inseparable from the practice of politics and government. Individual action is partly about leaders and entrepreneurs, but innovation is also about other dimensions of political order which are subject to order-changing actions of a non-individualistic kind, involving embedded cognitive schemas, deliberative procedures and social learning, and historical conjunctures in which individual and collective agents create opportunities in concrete circumstances. Various cases will be taught in different semesters from the U.S. and other countries, such as race relations, political revolutions, policy innovations of various kinds, negotiation of equity commitments, post-crisis reconciliation exercises, and leadership. Course Fee: GL01 $90.