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Pass Your Cisco CCNA in 60 Days
Urbanization is reaching a new peak in the contemporary world with the rise of mega cities. Researchers try to make sense of these large urban areas using a variety of concepts. The class will review debates and present social science models of cities to analyse and compare contemporary developments.
Government works best when citizens are directly engaged in policymaking and public service delivery.
This social sciences course explores citizen engagement and the role citizens can play in actively shaping public policy.
Throughout the course, you will learn about cutting edge research and theories related to citizen engagement, and examples of ways citizens and governments are working together in new ways to improve their societies.
This course was developed in partnership with many individuals and organizations. We have partnered with top experts from a wide range of fields and countries to present this course, creating a truly global faculty.
We have also partnered with 4 leading institutions – the London School of Economics, Overseas Development Institute, Participedia and CIVICUS – who have taken leading roles in the development of each week’s content.
Citizen participation is everywhere. Invoking it has become de rigueur when discussing cities and regions in the developing world. From the World Bank to the World Social Forum, the virtues of participation are extolled: From its capacity to "deepen democracy" to its ability to improve governance, there is no shortage to the benefits it can bring. While it is clear that participation cannot possibly "do" all that is claimed, it is also clear that citizen participation cannot be dismissed, and that there must be something to it. Figuring out what that something is — whether it is identifying the types of participation or the contexts in which it happens that bring about desirable outcomes — is the goal of the class.
This course will serve as both an introduction to contemporary political philosophy and a way to explore issues of pluralism and multiculturalism. Racial and ethnic groups, national minorities, aboriginals, women, sexual minorities, and other groups have organized to highlight injustice and demand recognition and accommodation on the basis of their differences. In practice, democratic states have granted a variety of group-differentiated rights, such as exemptions from generally applicable laws, special representation rights, language rights, or limited self-government rights, to different types of groups. This course will examine how different theories of citizenship address the challenges raised by different forms of pluralism. We will focus in particular on the following questions:
- Does justice require granting group-differentiated rights?
- Do group-differentiated rights conflict with liberal and democratic commitments to equality and justice for all citizens?
- What, if anything, can hold a multi-religious, multicultural society together? Why should the citizens of such a society want to hold together?
