Civics is the study of our national government, constitution, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Topics include democracy and other forms of government; legislative, executive, and judicial functions; the political process; and foreign and domestic policies. It also includes a summary of Washington State History and local native sovereignty.

Social Studies Targets:Forms of governmentNature/Purposes of governmentIdeologies of governmentComparative governmentEconomic systems and governmentLearning Targets:Understand how the world is organized politically and nations interact (civics)Identify the differences in philosophy, structure, and the nature of different types of government (civics)Understand the role of sovereignty in the development of different governments and within governments (civics)Compare and contrast democracies with other forms of government.(civics)Understand individual rights and their accompanying responsibilities including problem solving and decision making at the local, state, and international level. (civics)Understand how cultural forces and factors influenced and were influenced by changes in government (Cultural Geography)Identify ways that power can be distributed geographically within a state (Physical Geography)Identify the different types of economic systems (Economics)Understand how different government and economic systems influence one another (Economics)Students will recognize and analyze the ideologies inherent in different economic systems. (Economics)

This lesson combines two readings from the iCivics Influence Library and adds activities that bridge the two topics: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.Learning Objectives. Students will be able to:Identify the basic ideas on government from Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.Define the terms: state of nature, natural rights, sovereign.Trace the development of the idea of the social contract from Thomas Hobbes to John Locke.

This course provides an overview of major works of social thought from the beginning of the modern era through the 1920s. Attention is paid to social and intellectual contexts, conceptual frameworks and methods, and contributions to contemporary social analysis. Writers include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.

This course is intended as an introduction to political philosophy as seen through an examination of some of the major texts and thinkers of the Western political tradition. Three broad themes that are central to understanding political life are focused upon: the polis experience (Plato, Aristotle), the sovereign state (Machiavelli, Hobbes), constitutional government (Locke), and democracy (Rousseau, Tocqueville). The way in which different political philosophies have given expression to various forms of political institutions and our ways of life are examined throughout the course.

This instructor resource walks the student throught the connection between Locke's view of natural rights to the modern concept of human rights. It also has the student reflect on the strategy of the civil rights movement and Malcolm X's proposal that the fight should be framed as a human rights struggle.

Is private property just? In this lecture, Professor Chris Feiman of the College of William and Mary presents some of the major philosophical challenges to private property.

This course examines the modern definition of freedom, and the obligations that people accept in honoring it. It investigates how these obligations are captured in the principles of our political associations. This course also studies how the centrality of freedom plays out in the political thought of such authors as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke and Montesquieu, as well as debating which notions of freedom inspire and sustain the American experiment by careful reading of the documents and arguments of the founding of the United States.
This course is part of the Concourse program at MIT.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file.

As taught Autumn Semester 2010/2011.

This module introduces students to the ideas of key thinkers in the history of western political thought. We look carefully at the canonical works of five thinkers in the history of political thought: Plato, Aristotle, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The module considers the impact of these thinkers on ancient and modern political thought and practices, with reference to the different contexts in which they wrote. We consider the way in which these thinkers have approached the ‘big’ questions and ideas that lie behind everyday political life.

The module examines questions such as: What is justice? What is the purpose of government? What is the best form of government? Is the state ever entitled to restrict our freedom to do what we want? Why should we obey the state? When is it right to have a revolution?

Module Code and Credits: M11001 (10 credits) M11151 (15 credits)

Suitable for study at: Undergraduate level 1

Dr David Stevens, School of Politics and International Relations

Dr Stevens' research is focussed primarily within the area of contemporary normative political philosophy. Specifically, he is concerned with issues of socio-economic justice within liberal democratic societies.

Modules taught: Social Justice (level 3); War and Massacre (level 2); Justice Beyond Borders: Theories of International and Intergenerational Justice (level D).

Areas of Research Supervision: Social justice; educational; justice; Rawlsian political philosophy. In particular, David Stevens encourages applications for PhD topics in the following areas: Social justice and schooling; State education and the rights of minority cultures. Political liberalism and the creation of civic virtue; Reflective equilibrium/moral constructivism.