Courses

IFE students meet students from the University of Strasbourg

FRENCH POLITICS AND THE EVOLVING STATE, SINCE NAPOLEON

This course provides students with a basic understanding of the long, evolving construction of the French State. The history of this construction is one of conflict and constant change. The course focuses on changing institutions as a way to understand the political struggles out of which the State arose.

Class discussion plays an important role in this course, as students are encouraged to interact with the material to help them grasp the subject matter, but also as a way to analyze events in general and to discover the value of historical analysis.

(Syllabus)

FRANCE IN THE WORLD SINCE 1945

The course provides a systematic view of French foreign policy and foreign policy debate, since the end of the Second World War. French diplomacy played an extremely important role in the world right from the beginning of international politics in the 17th century. Against that backdrop, the period since 1945 is usually seen as a decline in French international power and influence, in favor first of the United States and then of Europe.

(Syllabus)

FRENCH SOCIETY: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

This course provided students with the key to understanding French society: the paradox between the democratic ideal that is at the foundation of all the institutions of modern, post-revolutionary France on one hand and, on the other, the current crisis of those institutions – and even of deep societal values. This crisis is seen to be provoked by the pressures of global economic liberalism and the transformations taking place in Europe and in its Union.

Through this course students become familiar with the effects these pressures are having on the specific institutionalized relations which exist between French citizens and their culture, work, education, immigration and other facets of life and society.

(Syllabus)

GLOBALIZATION: HISTORICAL, CRITICAL AND FRENCH SOCIETAL PERSPECTIVES

The course is structured by three main analytical stand-points. The first is the history of the process now known as globalization, a history still under debate. The second perspective comprises a look at the main features of the phenomenon of globalization: intensification of worker mobility and migration; vastly increased capital flows as well as flows of goods and services; and the significant increase in information exchange or cultural globalization. The third point of view is that of the main actors of globalization – States, international organizations, NGOs and transnational movements, multinational corporations – whose roles are transformed by the effects of globalization.

(Syllabus)