module specification

According to republican ideals, citizenship originally denoted being an active part of a city and its civil society, of a polis and its political community, not simply the possessor of a passport.

This module explores the changing meaning and continuing potential of citizenship, including the modern separation of the politics of the sovereign, bureaucratic state from the market society of its economically active subjects, and the failure of attempts to use states’ representative democracy to democratise society and justify corporate and institutionalised power in terms of citizens’ participation. This failure has much to do with the massive scale of modern political and economic organisation, and the module will explore recent arguments about both the politics of locality and community and the relation of citizenship and rights to duties, virtues, and justice.

The modules aims:

1. To provide a historical and critical introduction to ideas, theories and arguments about citizenship and social justice.
2. To explore ethical ideas and to articulate such ideas in the construction of a logical argument.
3. To relate philosophical propositions to political, social and economic issues and to institutional, legal and policy prescriptions.

There are no pre-requisites.

The indicative syllabus includes the following:

1. Universality, Nationality, and Locality (LO 1, 3)
2. Ethics and Politics of Common Goods (LO 2, 3)
3. Citizenship: From Participation to Passivity? (L 1, 2)
4. Ethics and Politics of Rights (LO 2, 3)

Blended Learning will be a key component of the module. Lecture recordings and documents for use in class will be posted on-line, as will web links for relevant websites and library resources. 

Materials, including questions for discussion and assessment tasks, will be available from the beginning of the module via the Weblearn site, which will include a list of resources students can use to answer the questions and study the subject in greater depth.

Students are required to make a presentation and to participate in critical discussion of lectures and presentations.

Throughout, students will be encouraged to reflect on their learning.

By the end of this module students will be able to:

1. understand the sources and development of contemporary ideas and practices of  citizenship;
2. analyse, articulate, criticise and defend ethical ideas, and apply such ideas in the
3. evaluation of political ideologies and institutions and of social and economic policies;
4. present and defend a logical argument supported by relevant evidence.
5. develop critical abilities to analyse primary and secondary resources focused on human security.
6. enhance the capacity to work independently, demonstrating initiative, self-organisation and time-management, as well as co-operating with other students to achieve common goals.

There will be two summative assessments.

The first is a presentation chosen from a list of questions, each of which has a designated week. The presentation will count for 20% of the final grade.

The second summative essay of 3,500-4,000 words which will provide students with the opportunity to submit a major piece of work of their choosing on a key element of the module.

Both presentation and essay will be assessed primarily on the cogency and logical development of the student’s argument. They will also be assessed on the use of textual evidence in support of the argument, and therefore — especially in essays — on the choice of sources and on the sufficiency, consistency and accuracy of the scholarly apparatus with which the sources are cited.

In addition, both assessments are designed to encourage the development of a variety of employability skills including: research involving information retrieval from a variety of resources; analysing and advocating solutions to problems; developing a reasoned argument; and exercising critical judgement.  In addition to writing, students will be encouraged to reflect on what they have learnt and to make use of constructive feedback.

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