Master 2024/2025

Off the Centre: Introduction to the Radical Political Thought

Type: Elective course (Politics. Economics. Philosophy)

Area of studies: Political Science

Delivered by: School of Theory of Law and Comparative Law

Where: Faculty of Social Sciences

When: 1 year, 4 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Rodion Belkovich

Master’s programme: Политика. Экономика. Философия

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Unification of the First World states under the banner of liberal democracy and the dominance of the human rights agenda as a common vocabulary of political elites sometimes create an illusion of the end of intellectual history. Liberalism promotes itself as a natural phenomenon, a default worldview of any society developed enough to fight the “perversions” of the extreme left and right alike. This “liberal millennialism” does not differ much in this respect from the Soviet insistence on Communism as being an unsurpassable pinnacle of political philosophy. The current events though show an altogether different picture – the growing discontent of the people on both sides of the political spectrum, leading to direct action and even violence, reminds us of the potent yet mostly hidden intellectual forces which always exist on the fringes of mainstream ideology. This course is an introduction to the history of radicalism in political philosophy. Through readings in classical and contemporary authors, lectures and class-room discussions the students will try to grasp the nature and the allure of radicalism as an ever-present mode of thinking about the things political.