Political Theory as Practice (MDC Pol. Sc)

Course Type	Course Code	No. Of Credits
Discipline Core	NSGA1MDC202	4

Course coordinator and team: Dr. Ekta and Dr. Payal

Course coordinator email: ekta@aud.ac.in

Summary The course has been designed to introduce students to ‘ideas’ that have informed politics and institutions of governance - the different conceptions and justifications for political practices. The course is aspirational in trying to break away from the conventional model of understanding political theory - in a western political theory mould or critiquing the same through western-non- western binaries. The course seeks a departure from by not only introducing students to different ‘perspectives of political theory’ that have been used to frame and understand politics but also laying emphasis on the need to see political theory itself as developing from varied contexts. The idea is to allow students to not just study theories and apply in different contexts but to appreciate theorization itself as a ‘process’ emerging from varied contexts as argued by Prathama Banerjee and Maitreyee Chowdhury. The effort is to help students appreciate the ‘meaning’ that has been ascribed to concepts and practices in different contexts while introducing them to western political theory. This is attempted by not only emphasizing the need to bridge the gap between theory and practice in our articulation of political theory but understanding ‘political theory as practice’. In doing so, the course makes a case for an ‘emic political theory’ by exposing students to literature (including ethnographic) that incorporates different ways in which concepts and values have been and are understood across cultures.
Objectives:

The objectives of this course are:

To enable students to see political theory as practice-oriented and not rooted in abstraction.
To reinvigorate the ‘political’ within political theory emphasizing the political nature of political theory.
To enable students to see the world from different vantage points and their intersections.

Overall structure:

This course is organized around four units.\

Unit	Topic	Duration (Weeks)
1.	Political Theory as Practice	3
2.	Key Concepts: Liberty, Equality, Rights	3
3.	Law, State, and Justice	3
4.	Democracy as an Ethical Ideal	3

Module 1: Political Theory as Practice

The module starts off by emphasizing the ‘political’ nature of political theory as it has evolved by laying emphasis on the historical specificity of concepts and theories. The module will discuss not

only the significance of political theory for real world politics in provoking us to ask questions, especially ‘why’ questions. But drawing on Prathama Banerjee and Maitreyee Choudhary’s interventions, will encourage students to understand ‘theory as practice’ - as a process that is intrinsic to making sense of varied contexts. In other words, students will be taught ‘how to theorize’ rather than study mainstream theories and concepts and apply to their immediate contexts. In this spirit the module will discuss how an ‘ethnographic sensibility’ can contribute to decolonizing political theory, that is, in allowing us to theorize ‘with’ rather than ‘about’ marginalized groups by paying attention to meanings that are ascribed to concepts and values. The focus would be on the action and experience aspect in arriving at what qualifies as political theory. Accordingly, the module will discuss ‘intersectionality’ as an analytical framework for understanding how an individual’s social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege in different locales.

Core Readings:

Bhargava, R. (2008) ‘What is Political Theory’, ‘Why do we need Political Theory’ in Bhargava, R. and Acharya, A. (eds), Political Theory: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman, pp. 2-16.
Chaudhuri, Maitrayee and Manish Thakur (2019). ‘Introduction’ in Doing Theory: Locations, Hierarchies, and Disjunctures, Orient Blackswan.
Banerjee, Prathama (2020). ‘Introduction’ in Elementary Aspects of the Political- Histories from the Global South, Duke University Press.
Bhargava, R. (2008). ‘Introduction: Outline of a political theory of the Indian Constitution’. In R. Bhargava (Ed.),Politics and ethics of the Indian Constitution. Oxford University Press.
Banerjee, Supurna and Nandini Ghosh (2018). Introduction. Debating Intersectionalities: Challenges for a Methodological Framework, South Asian Multidisciplinary Academic Journal [Online] https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4745 (Accessed on 04-06-2023)
Mahajan, Gurpreet (2013). ‘Indian Political Theory: beyond cultural essentialism’ in India-Political Ideas and the Making of a Democratic Discourse (Zed Books: London and New York).
Herzog, Lisa and Bernardo Zacka. (2017). ‘Fieldwork in Political Theory: Five Arguments for an Ethnographic Sensibility’. British Journal of Political Science, 49(2): 763-784. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of- politicalscience/article/fieldwork-inpolitical-theory-five-arguments-for-an-ethnographic sensibility

Suggested Readings:

Hassanzadeh, Navid (2015). ‘The Canon and Comparative Political Thought’, Journal of International Political Theory, Vol.11(2), 184-202.
Banerjee, Prathama (2015). ‘Doing Theory in Indian Classrooms’. Available Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWi9Z37AEuQ. (Accessed on 05-06-2023).
Swift Adam and Stuart White. (2008). ‘Political theory, social science and real politics’ in David Leopold and Marc Stears (eds.): Political theory: Methods and approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Crenshaw, Kimberley (1991). ‘Mapping the Margins: intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color’, Standford Law Review, Vol.43, No.6.

Christian List and Laura Valentini (2016). “The Methodology of Political Theory” in

Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, Oxford: OUP.

AK Ramanujan (1990). “Is there an Indian way of thinking? An informal essay” from ed McKim MarriottIndia Through Hindu categories , Sage,
Understanding Political Theory, egyankosh (School of Social Sciences, IGNOU) https://egyankosh.ac.in/handle/123456789/57822

Module 2: Key Concepts : Liberty, Equality, Rights

The module will discuss the concepts of Liberty, Equality, and Rights from different vantage points. The emphasis will be on the inevitable value conflicts and trade-offs that most policies involve and the role and relevance of political theory in provoking value-laden questions and initiating struggles. In doing so, the focus would be on bringing forth the specificity that context brings to understanding concepts. This will be explored through the thought of Ambedkar and others. The module will use case studies from policy domain to make clear the tensions therein. Debates around resource distribution, recognition and rights of Minority Cultures, legality of same-sex marriage, prostitution, Abortion, Euthanasia, Offensive speech inter-caste marriages, surrogacy and Aadhaar will be discussed by contextualizing them in the Indian setting.

Core Readings:

V. Sriranjani (2008) ‘Liberty’ in Bhargava, R. and Acharya, A. (eds), Political Theory: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman.

Acharya, Ashok (2008). ‘Equality’ in Bhargava, R. and Acharya, A. (eds), Political Theory: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman.
Sengupta, Papia (2008). ‘Rights’ in Bhargava, R. and Acharya, A. (eds), Political Theory: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman.
Mahajan, Gurpreet (2013). ‘Liberty’ and ‘Equality’ in Political Ideas and the Making of a Democratic Discourse, Zed Books.
Chandhoke, Neera (2005). ‘Individual and Group Rights: A View from India’ in Zoya Hasan, E. Sridharan, R. Sudarshan ed. India’s Living Constitution: Ideas, Practices, Controversies, Delhi: Permanent Black.
Begari Jagannatham ed. (2022). ‘Ambedkar’s debate on equality and liberty: Fraternity as Political Normative’ in B. R. Ambedkar and Social Transformation, Routledge.
Ambedkar’s final speech in the Constituent Assembly, dated November 25, 1949.
Basu, Srimati (1999). She Comes to Take Her Rights: Indian Women, Property, Propriety, SUNY Press.
Rudolph, Lloyd (2010). An Ethnography of Associational Life: Caste and Politics in India APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper, Available at: SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1644339
Katherine Smits (2016). Applying Political Theory, Palgrave Macmillan. [Select Chapters]