Dr Jacob Lypp

This course is available on the MA in Modern History, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Columbia), MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Sciences Po), MSc in Political Economy of Europe in the World, MSc in Political Economy of Europe in the World (LSE and Fudan), MSc in Political Economy of Europe in the World (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in Political Science (Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics) and MSc in Political Sociology. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

To apply for a place, ALL students should submit a statement via LSE for You outlining your specific reasons for applying, how it will benefit your academic/career goals, and how you meet any necessary pre-requisites (maximum 200 words).

The first round of offers will be made from 12-noon on the Friday before Autumn Term week 1. The final deadline for applications is 12-noon on the Friday of Autumn Term week 2.

For queries contact: ei@lse.ac.uk

The course investigates various ways in which the state’s authority has been underpinned in Europe, both ideologically and institutionally, in the modern period. It thus provides students with a deep analytical understanding of the changing role of the state in European politics and society. It is divided into three parts. “Part A: Theorising the political” examines the historical and conceptual emergence of the state, and its relationship with other political forms such as cities and empires. “Part B: Twentieth-century patterns” studies core features of the post-WWII West European political settlement of national democracies and welfare states in an era of decolonisation. “Part C: Contemporary European trends” discusses the ways in which this settlement is eroding today. Under the heading ‘post-ideological, post-democratic, post-statal?’, the course concludes with an overview of possible trajectories to come.

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
2 hours of seminars in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

A review session will be held at the start of the Spring Term to prepare for the e-exam. 

Presentation.

Essay (1500 words) in Autumn Term Week 8.

• Quentin Skinner (1989) 'The State', in Ball and Hanson (eds.) Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge UP)
• Ayşe Zarakol, Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (Cambridge UP)
• Peter Wagner (2008) Modernity as Experience and Interpretation (Polity)
• James Tully (2002) 'The Unfreedom of the Moderns', Modern Law Review 63
• Michael Freeden (1996) Ideologies and Political Theory (Oxford UP)
• Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (1997) Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Princeton UP)
• Chantal Mouffe (2005) On the Political (Verso)
• Nina Eliasoph (1998) Avoiding Politics (Cambridge UP)
• Peter Mair (2006), 'Ruling the Void? The Hollowing of Western Democracy', New Left Review 42
• Jonathan White (2022), 'The De-institutionalisation of Power beyond the State', European Journal of International Relations 28
• Jonathan White (2019), Politics of Last Resort: Governing by Emergency in the European Union (Oxford UP).
• Timothy Mitchell, "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics", The American Political Science Review 85

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period.

The summative assessment will take the form of an e-exam in the Spring Term. E-exams are assessments run under invigilated exam conditions on campus. Students will complete the assessment using software downloaded to their personal laptops.