12023 The Polis: Government, Succession and Revolution 1
Credits: 3 graduate credits in Democracy Studies / History, Education and Citizenship
Prerequisites: Democracy: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Israeli Democracy: Selected Issues, Contemporary Democratic Theories; one of the following: Democracy and Democratization, Selected Problems in the History of Western Democracies, Education Policy: Education for Democracy in Democratic Societies, Democracy and Mass Communication,2 Selected Topics in Public Administration; and exemption from bibliographic assignments on computer searches in the “Alef” catalog and databases.
The course is based on a reader edited by Israel Shatzman.
The course deals with the political and social entity that the Greeks called the “polis” – the city-state, which appeared in the 8th century BCE and existed, in different variations, until the Byzantine period. The discussion ranges from the archaic period to the Hellenistic period, but concentrates on the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. Different political structures were found in the polis in the period discussed, and the course deals with the establishment and abolition of governments, developments and events as they occurred, as well as literary and theoretical studies of these phenomena – ancient and modern.
Objectives: To become acquainted with and examine the views and thought of the ancient Greeks about types of government and succession, especially the theories of Plato and Aristotle; To become acquainted with and examine the phenomenon of the stasis in the polis (reasons, goals, characteristics and typography) and the analysis of ancient Greeks, especially Thucydides, of this phenomenon.
Topics: The polis – beginnings, characteristics, essence and changes; The history of government in Athens; Governments and succession; Stasis, revolution and civil conflict.
1Students who took The Rise and Fall of Regimes in Classical Greece (10306) as part of their undergraduate studies may not take this course.
Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.
2or Liberalism: Texts, Contexts, Critiques (12005), for students who took it as a required course in the Culture specialization before Spring 2010.