College of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Communication

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

Course Outline in PS 302 Introduction to International Relations

School Year : 2020-2021

Semester : First
Room : Google Classroom
Schedule : 08:00 – 09:30 PM
Course Code :
Instructor : Mr. Edmark Vincent C. Racho

PRELIMINARY PERIOD

(1) Overview of Political Theory

a) The Study of Political Theory

b) Brief History of Political Theory
c) Characteristics of Political Theory
d) Significance of Political Theory
e) Issues in Political Theory

(2) The Republic by Plato

a) Justice, Defined
b) The Rudiments of Social Organization
c) The Luxurious State
d) The Guardians’ Temperament
e) Selection of Rulers: The Guardians’ Manner of Living
f) The Virtues in the State
g) The Three Parts of the Soul
h) The Virtues in the Individual
i) Equality of Women
j) Abolition of the Family for the Guardians
k) The Philosophers must be Kings
l) The Allegory of the Cave
m) Democracy and the Democratic Man

(3) Politics by Aristotle

a) Nature and Origin of the State

b) Slavery
c) Nature of Property
d) Critique of Plato’s Republic
e) Citizenship
f) Political Systems: Democracy, Oligarchy, and Monarchy
g) Liberty and Equality
h) The Rule of Law
i) The Best State
j) Political Moderation and Stability: The Middle Classes
k) Causes of and ways to prevent a Revolution
 MIDTERM PERIOD

(4) The Republic and the Laws by Cicero

a) Civic Responsibility: Its Duties and Rewards

b) The Main Types of State
c) The Best Constitution
d) Natural Law and the Unity of Mankind

(5) The City of God by St. Augustine

a) Justice: The Foundation of the State

b) The True Happiness of the Ruler
c) The Earthly and the Heavenly City
d) The Two Types of Man
e) Conflict and Peace in the Earthly City
f) The Lust for Power in the Earthly City
g) Shortcomings of Human Justice
h) The Objective of War: Peace
i) Liberty and Slavery
j) Equitable Rule
k) The Supranational Character of the Heavenly City on Earth

(6) Political Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas

a) On Kingship
b) Summa Theologica

PRE-FINAL PERIOD

(7) The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

a) Constant Readiness for War

b) Why Princes are praised or blamed?
c) Power as an end in itself
d) Reason of state or raison d’etat
e) Virtue
f) Morals and Religion
g) 10 Point-Prescription on Effective Political Leadership by Machiavelli

(8) Six Books on the State by Jean Bodin

a) The State
b) Sovereignty
c) Legitimate and Despotic Monarchies
d) Just Tyrannicide and Unjust Regicide
e) The Social Causes of Revolution
f) War

(9) The Spirit of the Laws by Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

a) The Social and Physical Foundations of Government

b) Republican Government, and the Laws Relative to Democracy
 c) The Principle of Democracy
d) The Principle of Despotic Government
e) Corruption of the Principles of Democracy
f) Meaning of Liberty

FINAL PERIOD

(10)The Social Contract Theory by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau

a) The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

a.1 The State of Nature
a.2 The Social Contract
a.3 The Commonwealth
a.4 Rights of the Sovereign
a.5 Liberty of the Subject
a.6 Civil Law and Natural Law
a.7 Subversive Political Doctrines

b) Two Treatises of Government by John Locke

b.1 The State of Nature
b.2 The State of War
b.3 Slavery
b.4 Property
b.5 Political Society
b.6 The End of Government
b.7 The Limits of Government
b.8 The Right to Rebel

c) The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau

c.1 Man is born free
c.2 The Right of the Strongest
c.3 The Social Compact
c.4 The Sovereign
c.5 The Indivisibility and Limits of Sovereignty
c.6 Infallibility of the General Will
c.7 Government in General and Democracy