Course of Politics in English will be held in the form of on-line webinars. Each webinar is 60 minutes + up to 30 minutes for Q & A. Webinars will be available to watch also offline, after the lecture. Cost of the course of Politics is 30 euro (or it’s eqivalent in any other currency, payable through PayPal). All course’ participants will be granted the certificate of accomplishment which we are going to deliver by mail.
The course of Politics will cover following topics:
1. How does the state work?
A short course about the main types of constitutional systems all over the world. The lecture reveals also the decision making process in foreign politics and the strategic fields in international affairs
Date: Thursday, March 28th, 20:30 CET
2. International affairs.
The subject concerns a brief history of international affairs and diplomacy. The main political issues of the world also would be discussed during the lecture.
Date: Thursday, April 11th, 20:30 CET
3. Democracy after communism
The changes that spread across Middle-East Europe and nearly the whole area of ex USSR leaded in fact to downfall of communism in the most of the countries out of this area. Peaceful „refolution” except Romania was everywhere provided according to the same scenario: social dissatisfaction and difficult economic situation extracted the will of compromise searching with opposition from the then power, in order to introduce reforms that would modernize malfunctioning political, economic and social system. The Polish scenario, that means negotiations of communistic parties representatives and its annexes with oppositions representatives and common outworking the rules of coming out of „real socialism”, turned out to be „regulative idea” for the most countries in this part of the world.
Thursday, April 25th, 20:30 CET
4. Contemporary American Politics
Many recent developments of the American politics seem to be raising eyebrows of even its most sophisticated observers. While the President is widely criticized, his approval rating is at the level of 50% and his first-term achievements are rather dubious, he manages to solidly defeat gentleman who was running for president for the last decade. When the Congress’s favorability numbers are even lower than Presidents’ and both parties are unable to compromise, the structure of the federal legislature inaugurated January 3, 2013, almost resembles the previous one. While the Supreme Court is considered the most ideologically oriented of the past half century, it grants constitutionality to the Afordable Care Act, the standard bill of president’s Obama health care reform. All these developments are possible due to the specific constitutional and institutional design. So are there elements that the Founders overlooked, or is it just a mere combination of the living constitution and political ambition that puts the system in a permanent deadlock? Or maybe are there some other factors involved, too. Not only those issues will I attempt to cover during the lecture.
Date: Friday, May 10th, 20:30 CET
5. Principal-Agent Problem in the US, EU and Poland: Theory and Practice
Lying within the very heart of democratic theory, the principal-agent relationship resolves many costs the contemporary society would bear, head it not pursued representative government. At the same time, however, we can witness many instances, when agents of the people simply are not doing their job representing citizens that elected them to legislative and executive bodies of government to run the country in the citizens’ best interest. In this lecture I will attempt to present dynamics of the recent phenomenon of ‘breakdown in a representation’ that we can observe in democracies all around the world.
Date: Thursday, May 23rd, 20:30 CET