Law, State, and Social Change

Government today is understood as democratic but also heavily bureaucratic. This seminar examines some of the tensions between democracy and bureaucracy as they developed over the nineteenth and into the early-twentieth centuries. It uses the experiences of the US, UK, France and Germany as the basis for comparison. The 1830s-1914 was a period of intense social and political upheaval throughout the North Atlantic world, including massive changes in modes of transportation and industrial production, the consolidation of forms of political representation and suffrage, urbanization, mass migration, profound changes in market relations, bureaucratization (both public and private), imperialism, and eventually the onset of total war. Our focus will be on how the realm of public law -- that is, the law of political structure and procedure, as well as the relationship of the state to society -- became a realm of contestation in the transformation of representative government into more diffuse forms of administrative governance over the course of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Course Schedule

  • Date: Tuesday 6:30-9:15PM
  • Location: KT 205

Course Information

  • Catalog number-Section number: 7860-10
  • Course Type: Seminar
  • Prerequisites: None
  • Credits (min/max): 3/3
  • Subjects:

Enrollment

  • Enrollment status: Open
  • Current enrollment/capacity: 11/12
  • Reserve population/capacity: 0/0
  • Waitlist enrollment/capacity: 0/50

Grading

  • Grade basis: Graded
  • Satisifies Writing Requirement: No
  • Exam type: NO EXAM